


(Chances Are This Is) How John Winchester Got His Groove Back

by innie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 01:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Trickster brings Mary back - as Jess.<br/>Art by glitter_noire</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Chances Are This Is) How John Winchester Got His Groove Back

**Author's Note:**

> pre-series AU

So I was watching these two humans starting to get it on. What? I like porn, and I like it live; who do you think dropped a hint Caligula's way? 

I looked at the guy for a minute, trying to figure out what he had that could get him primo ass like the one grinding on top of him, but then I came to my senses and focused on the girl again. H-O-T, hot. Super foxy. Slammin' bod. Whatever you want to call it, she had it. 

Blonde hair, big shiny curls, better than Farrah Fawcett, believe you me. Face all soft and open, panting as the guy slid his hand into her bra. So close to my ideal woman, but if she really were, she wouldn't have been wearing a bra in the first place, white lace or not. 

"John," she was moaning, and the guy, wriggling dumbly beneath her like a fish on a hook, gaped up at her and stuttered, "Ma - Mary," like he'd just now figured out how to speak and grope at the same time. Good thing he wasn't trying to chew gum too.

"God, John," she called when he remembered there were better things he could be doing with his mouth, and I had to give him an A for effort when he managed to keep sucking at one of her awesomely perky nipples while pulling her tight little jeans and panties - pink, with little red rosebuds - right off. He rolled them over and got rid of his own clothes too, sitting up to strip, leaving her bare and exposed. Oh, man, was she glorious. Breasts that were two soft, pink handfuls, rug that matched the drapes, and blue eyes that could bore a hole in you if you were taking too long to give her what she wanted, like, say, a fucking for the record books. I take it back; she was totally my ideal woman.

He hopped to it, and I so didn't need to see his hairy ass flexing. Would it have killed him to let her be on top? She totally looked bendy enough. 

But, man, the sounds she was making were just unbelievable, even if he was harmonizing with his grunting; screamers were always my favorites, and she could howl like a banshee. And there was just _something_ about a girl who liked to go _al fresco_ , if you know what I mean, a girl who had no problem getting down to business in a park where they held Sunday school picnics. I mean, I could have seen them even if they were in a goddamn useless nuclear fallout shelter, but still, it was nice not to have to make the effort. Nakedness like that - sweeter than a bakery filled to the brim - should be shared.

* 

I dropped in on them from time to time: walking by them on a crowded sidewalk, becoming a guy eating pie in the next booth when they had their nauseating burgers-and-shakes dates. And once I became a nice old man, feeding the squirrels in the park, who agreed to take their picture as they leaned against a big, shiny black car, arms wrapped around each other.

Of course, right after that, if they'd been paying any attention, they might have seen that the little old man vanished like a puff of smoke, but they only had eyes for each other.  
That was the best thing about Mary; you never knew when she'd get that glint in her eye that meant she needed a dick, and she needed it now. Or at least, John couldn't, if the way his jaw dropped every time was any indication, but I was getting better at it - why do you think I kept showing up? And, really, a girl like that should never have to beg.

  
Mary smiled at her reflection in the mirror, fluffing her hair with her fingers. Thank God she didn't have to keep her body camouflaged anymore; she'd finally worked off the last of the baby weight Sammy had caused - if only he'd weighed forty pounds, she'd have been all set. But he'd been a nine-pound, red-faced, screaming bundle of joy. At least he hadn't been a close call like Dean.

She put in the diamond solitaire earrings John had given her for their first anniversary five years ago, then twirled a little, frankly enjoying the silky swirl of fabric against her thighs.

"Pretty, Mommy," Dean said behind her, and she turned to find him standing there, looking solemn and big-eyed and entirely too winsome for words. He was clearly playing her, all but performing bashfulness with a foot dragging back and forth in front of him. She thanked God that he was still too transparent to do it well.

"Mommy," he said, approaching the vanity, with its apparently fascinating clutter of makeup and hair clips and jewelry, "does Miz Smeller _hafta_ come over?" 

"Sneller, Dean. Mrs. Sneller." She made sure the jewelry was out of reach of his grubby little fingers, but kept a tortoise-shell clip that looked like a medieval torture device close to the edge so that he could pick it up if he wanted. He was insatiably curious, but the hair clip was too big and bulky to be swallowed.

"Yeah, but does she _hafta_ come over? 'Cause I can sit with Sammy." He'd clearly convinced himself that having a babysitter was an affront to his burgeoning masculinity. She was going to smack John the next time he called Dean "little man." And she knew how to make it hurt.

"Who is Mrs. Sneller going to play with then, Dean? She already called me to ask if you and Sammy could play with her tonight, and we don't want to be _mean_ , do we?"

"Noooo," Dean said slowly, evidently not having considered the "play" aspect of the evening or the ramifications of being mean - Santa had been a _big_ help in the "you better be good" department. "Okay," he said magnanimously. "She can come over and play."

"That's my boy," she said, and he lit up like a spotlight at her words. She couldn't resist hugging him tightly, giving him an extra squeeze when he turned his cold little nose into her neck to smell her perfume.

Tomorrow. She'd just give herself this one day of being just a wife, just a mother, and she'd clean her weapons and practice with her knives tomorrow. 

She nodded at her reflection, picked Dean up to listen to him squeal with delight when she twirled him, and went to check on Sammy, who'd been suspiciously quiet for far too long. If he was up to what she figured he must be - well, then, John could change his diaper; she was sure it was his turn anyway.

*

"I don't know why I keep eating these mashed potatoes," Mary said, stirring the pale scoop with her fork; "they taste like they're from a box. An _old_ box."

"Still better than yours, cupcake." John grinned around his fork as he stole a bite from her plate, then grimaced. "No, you're right. What the hell are they doing in that kitchen back there?"

"Nobody's are as good as yours," Mary purred, leaning forward and showing off her now-impressive cleavage - thank you, childbearing.

John pointed his fork at her, ready to agree, but then he seemed to catch himself. "If this is another ploy to get me to do the cooking, you can just -"

She played with a lock of her hair and sucked suggestively on a crisp breadstick, and John's eyes went wide.

"Yes?" she asked demurely. God, what would she have done if John Winchester hadn't walked into her life just one year before her parents' last, fatal hunt? Would she still be tagging along behind her father, hating the necessity of the hunt? Or would she be dead too?

"You'll pay for that," John breathed darkly, but she didn't let herself shiver at his husky voice. Not yet.

"Cash" - she glanced meaningfully over at the restroom - "or credit" - she sat back to indicate their big soft bed at home - "Mr. Winchester?"

John fiddled with the napkin on his lap, looking down at his plate like a bashful schoolboy, but when he locked eyes with her, she had no illusions about his youth or innocence. "Cash, _now_ ," he said, and she got up and sashayed away from the table, still feeling his electric gaze on her bare back.

He burst into the restroom before she'd had a chance to do more than look in the mirror to make sure she didn't have anything stuck in her teeth. "We're alone, right?" he said, grabbing her and slamming her back against the wall before she could even answer him.  
She saw double for a second - let it never be said that John Winchester lacked enthusiasm - and decided to take matters into her own hands. Her mother's lessons came back to her with a vengeance, and she sidestepped, locked his ankle, and twisted them around, pushing him hard into the wall. "It's _Jack_ who broke his crown, not Jill," she reminded him sweetly, then pretty much climbed up him.

His hands were hot against her bare legs; she'd never gotten the point of pantyhose, and John claimed they were nothing more than an unnecessary obstacle. He hoisted her up, giving himself an up close and personal view of her cleavage.

He was biting at her breasts when he started to laugh. God, she was going to have whisker-burn on her chest for weeks. "What?" she asked, cupping his nice, firm ass with her hands.

"I just can't believe we're doing this," he rumbled, mouth still hovering just over her skin. "That I'm doing this to the mother of my children."

"How do you think I got knocked up in the first place?" she asked the top of his head, then pulled on his hair until his chin came up and his eyes met hers. "And this is just the first round of the night, baby," she said, squeezing her legs and leaning forward to lick the dimple in his left cheek.

John growled, she got even wetter like a perverted Pavlovian response, and he flipped them back around, tugged her panties out of the way, and proceeded to give her what for like a champ.

*

John was downstairs paying Mrs. Sneller, the gently smiling, knitting extortionist, and then locking up while Mary stole upstairs and made one more self-indulgent check on the boys. 

They were both pink-cheeked and contentedly sleeping, Sammy on his back in the crib and Dean on his belly in the "big boy" bed they'd gotten him over the summer. Both of them desperately needed haircuts, and Dean was starting school in a few months, and would have to get all of his shots. And that meant that she'd have to bake cookies as a reward, since he didn't like the lollipops in Dr. Wallace's office. Mary leaned down, kissed the tip of Dean's nose, then Sammy's fat little cheek, and closed their door gently behind her.

She'd stepped out of her heels and was halfway through unpinning her hair when she saw John, standing in their bedroom with a single red rose. "I love you, Mary," he said.  
She wouldn't have believed that old news could make her cry, but it did. "I love you too," she said, sniffling in the least sexy way possible. She finally gave up and pulled a tissue from the box and honked into it, glaring at him while he laughed and tossed the rose on the dresser. Her sternness faded as she took in the sight of him in the moonlight, older, heavier, with lines on his face etched by the boys, but more hers than ever. "I really do," she said, reaching up to kiss him with everything she had.

John kissed her back, long and hard and wet, and then got her right where she wanted to be - caught deliciously between the hard planes of his body and the yielding softness of their bed. 

He smiled down at her, and her breath caught again, at the realization that he'd be giving her that same dimpled grin for the rest of their lives, whether it was night or day, summer or winter. She'd never be anyone's but his, claimed with a single sweet smile, and the ring she'd put on his finger with _Love Always_ engraved inside was never coming off.

"John," she said, just to hear his name again, roll it around on her tongue. He smelled like aftershave, but his beard was already coming in. The heat of him just above her, him holding all of his strength up with his locked elbows, was like standing in the brightest sunshine.

When she raised a hand to push his hair out of his eyes, he turned his head, cheetah-quick, to suck her fingers into his mouth. Her eyes fluttered closed, but she made the effort to open them back up and meet his.

His gaze bypassed lusty and went straight for wicked. "Brace yourself," he said, grinning with a purpose, then flipped the skirt of her dress out of the way. "My, my," he said, inspecting her closely. "You look good enough to eat, cupcake."

He kept her legs splayed with his big hands, dropping little kisses on the ticklish insides of her thighs. His tongue got into the act, licking tenderly at the lace that barely covered her.

Her hands were useless in his hair, and she had needs to be met. She pushed his face away impatiently and ripped off the little lace panties in her rush to be bare before him. He laughed, smugly, but she was willing to live with that if he would just get to it.

John's mouth descended on her like an army laying siege to hostile territory, taking no prisoners. She squirmed, she strangled a scream in her throat, and she writhed; through it all, John stayed on task with a diligence she credited to some long-ago drill sergeant. 

She'd lost her bra somewhere in that plush restroom, so when she slipped her hands into the halter bodice of her dress, she could feel her nipples straining against the material. "John, John, John!" she cried, as his fingers joined his tongue in making her dizzy with delight. 

He laughed against her, low and deliberate, just to feel her shake beneath his mouth, and she clapped her thighs around his head with perhaps unnecessary force; there was smug, and then there was insufferable. His eyes glinted dangerously at her as he finished her off, and her back arched involuntarily as she twisted on the bed, feeling wrung inside out.

Somehow, and she'd lost track of when this might have happened, his hands had joined hers on her breasts, and his fingers tweaked her nipples playfully. He kissed the valley between her breasts, and she carded her fingers through his thick hair. "Is there any more where that came from?" she asked, leaning up to kiss him.

She didn't give him much time to think up a clever retort. "Ah, Mary," he choked out when her hand closed firmly around his cock. She was feeling sated enough to be generous, and she smiled as all of the old tricks wrung gasps and groans from him.  
"Come on, John. I want you inside of me again," she said before his eyes could start to roll back in his head. She nipped sharply at his jaw to get his attention. "Now."  
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am," he said, and thrust into her with a pleased shout. Her legs wrapped around his waist of their own accord, and she stopped thinking altogether, knowing that whatever rhythm he chose to set would suit her just right.

*

She came awake with a groan, padding downstairs in search of coffee and John, definitely in that order. The house was strangely quiet, but it was too late for the boys to be sleeping still. Sammy in particular seemed to get a kick out of acting like a human alarm clock, up at the crack of dawn whether the rest of them - really she and Dean - liked it or not.

There was a note propped against the coffee maker. "Barber shop. Back for burgers." Well, John never had been one for flowery letters, and she couldn't exactly complain about the ways he chose to use his tongue.

After the first sip of life-giving coffee, her brain kicked in. If John was down at Mickey's barber shop, then they'd be gone for _hours_ ; neither Mickey nor John had the gift of shutting up, and John seemed determined that Dean and Sam would be just the same. She should take the gift of the day and revel in the silence that came around only once in a blue moon.

*

She got a batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in the oven before she started on her real work; if John was going to be fixing lunch, she could at least do that much. Sitting down at the bare kitchen table, Mary set out her guns and knives, lightly tracing each weapon with respectful fingers before she began cleaning them. They were old and familiar, the only parts of her parents she'd been able to hold on to, the sting of her childhood hatred erased by how much she needed them in her loneliness.

She heard herself humming a strange little tune as she worked, carefully and methodically, then smiled when she recognized it as the melody that the mobile above Sammy's crib played.

"What a pretty picture you make, Mary," she heard from behind her, and she whirled with a gun steady in her hand. But she started trembling from head to foot when she saw the yellow eyes of the man standing inside her kitchen, not two feet from her. The stranger seemed untroubled by her arsenal, just stepped closer, chuckling. "Really. You're the best thing I've seen in quite some time."

"What do you want?" she asked, her jaw clenched so tight it was already starting to ache.

"Just a little cooperation from you, my dear," the thing said, courtly and polished. "I feel sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement."

"What are you offering?" Her father had always taught her to learn as much as she could, in order to prepare herself for every situation.

"You should come work for me," it said, a twinkle in its jaundiced-looking eyes. "I offer wonderful benefits."

It wanted a hunter, and the Campbell name had been credit enough to get by for years. 

"No," she said, hating the tremor that ran through her voice. "I gave up the job years ago. I have a family now." She cursed herself for having gotten complacent, leaving her scrambling for anything that might work to get rid of him.

"Going once, going twice . . . ?" it offered, voice still light.

She shook her head, her neck still feeling tight as a drum. "Sorry."

"I don't think you mean that 'sorry,'" it said pleasantly, smiling down at her. It leaned in close, reeking like rotten eggs, and whispered, its breath making her hair flutter. "But you will."

It vanished, and all she could do was scream as her feet stayed rooted to the floor while flames taller than she was sprang up all around her, dancing ever closer, licking roughly at her skin, her hair, engulfing her, and then she was gone.

  
WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! TIME OUT!

What the hell just happened? 

I _said_ she was my favorite, and I AM A GOD.

You're going to fix this, and you're going to fix this now. I can get you a time loop that'll go back and put the last few minutes on hold, but you're going to need to get in there right now.

What do you mean, you can't? I don't care _who_ that yellow-eyed bastard was. I've scraped things like that off the bottom of my shoe.

Oh, so he's got friends? Can take over Reapers? He's part of a _plan_? Big fucking deal. The plan he's in could fit in the palm of my hand, right next to the future and the past, just above reality and fantasy. There's nothing I can't do.

No, I don't want her coming back all burned. Not _that_ kind of hot. Fine, fine, whatever, just make sure she's in a busty blonde.

I'm not about to let a girl like that be lost. You'll all thank me later.

  
Sam felt almost sorry for Ms. Krajewski. She had a really crappy office in a really crappy school, where no one ever admitted to needing guidance. His future was sewed up just as tight as all of his classmates', even if he wasn't staying put in this one-horse town.

"Sam," she said, looking at him over the edge of the file in her hand, like she needed a barrier between them to assert her authority, "I really think you have an excellent shot at a top-tier school, with your grades."

She couldn't be more than twenty-five, only ten years older than he was, and he had to squelch the urge to take her hand and tell her everything would be okay. She evidently took his silence for sincere interest, and launched into a fairly impassioned speech about all of the doors that college could open up for him, how universities loved self-motivated kids like him, and how all he really needed to round out his dozens of applications was a strong showing in extracurricular activities.

Sam smiled, gently, and promised to think over everything she'd said, fingers crossed behind his back. He took the brochures she was holding out, figuring that at least he and Dean could use them for target practice later on; there was one picture of smiling undergraduates in their caps and gowns that really needed a knife or two to spice it up.

*

The college spiel started to get a little old, when every teacher and guidance counselor across the country started chanting it like they'd all been programmed. Like _The Children of the Corn_ or something.

What was the point in listening? No one would ever be able to drown out Dad's words, about duty and honor and sacrifice. Sam just shrugged as affably as he could whenever the topic came up; he didn't want to think about why he never let himself spin fantastic lies about Ivy League schools and legacies going back several generations and "the Winchester buildings" like he so easily could have. It wasn't like he was ever going to see these people again, anyway.

*

Mrs. Goldblum changed everything, possibly because she used the best of Dad's guerrilla tactics. She pulled him out of class at odd times, barked at him like a drill sergeant for ten minutes, and then wrote him a note so he could rejoin his class, dazed and disoriented. She was a master strategist.

"Mrs. Goldblum," Sam said on his seventh visit to her office, crammed full of paper and photographs of her children and grandkids, hoping to cut her off at the pass this time, "I'm not going to college."

She waved away his words like they were pesky flies. "Nonsense! A boy with a brain like yours shouldn't be turning down opportunities so easily."

"How do you know what my brain -" he said, startling and nearly giving himself a bitch of a papercut when she waved the thick, stapled file of his transcript under his nose. "Maybe I'm just a suck-up, and that's why I got good grades."

"If you managed to charm your way into all of these A's, with all of these different teachers, then you should be able to change my mind with your mighty powers of persuasion." She raised her eyebrows and hopped up to perch on the edge of her desk. She fixed him with her beady eyes and said, "Go."

"I . . . uh . . . don't want to go to college."

"Untrue."

"It's for losers."

She yawned dramatically, even patting her open mouth with a weary hand.

"I can't afford -"

This time she made a sound like a buzzer on a game show, a loud croak that sounded like a diseased frog. "Yes, Samuel, you can. Even application fees can be waived, as you very well know, because I myself have told you so at least three times in this very office."

Sam sighed.

She peered at him from her perch. "Sam," she said gently, "I'm not in the business of giving up on good kids like you."

He nodded, unable to speak because his stupid throat closed up at the way she was looking at him, like she knew him through and through and somehow liked him anyway. "I'm going to give you some information, and we'll meet tomorrow morning to go over it, yes?" She hopped down from her desk, and suddenly she was just this little old lady again, shorter than he was even when he was sitting down. Pointing up at him, she said, "If you've got the discipline, I've got the energy." 

Sam smiled at her, and her answering grin went from ear to ear.

*

Dean, of course, was there to pick him up, as promised, but - shocker - he also had some girl pressing him up against the car; Sam knew that was his preferred pose, since he could keep an eye out while still having his "frisky" time. God, Dean really should be neutered as a public service. Sam was just flabbergasted that nothing they'd hunted had tried it yet, but he guessed that bad guys weren't real big on their civic duties.

Sam cleared his throat pointedly and managed to contort himself practically flat so that he could slide by them into the passenger seat. When he looked out the window, all he could see was Dean's butt, the little red tag on his jeans right in the middle of his field of vision. Sam rolled his eyes and dug in his bag for the materials Mrs. Goldblum had handed him, figuring he had at least ten minutes to kill, given the strenuous tonsil hockey Dean and the purple-haired girl were engaging in, and that he should get a head start on reading the brochures through before Dad found them and made confetti out of them.

*

The course catalogs were pretty wild. Sam couldn't imagine going to a class all about sexuality in advertising or literary forgeries, where everyone would show up and be interested and want to continue class discussions over coffee. He hid the catalogs under his mattress, but they made his bed lumpy and perversely incriminating, in a way that Dean's porn somehow never did to _his_ mattress.

Looking through the glossy brochures, even examining the pictures with an eagle eye, he couldn't tell who were the rich kids and who were the scholarship kids; everybody dressed alike, in what was pretty much the Winchester uniform - faded jeans and whatever shirt looked at least passably clean. He wouldn't be the new kid, or the one who lived in that dirty motel, or the one who most often didn't have a single friend but always had a big brother.

He'd just be one in the crowd, not standing out in any way. But the crowd itself would be special - the smartest kids in the country, not grizzled hunters who had only one topic of conversation - death, death, and more death. He couldn't wait to get there.

And how hard could college applications be, anyway?

*

Sam groaned in frustration and buried his hand in his hair, twisting it a little to keep his eyes from closing. He should have tried to write at least one of the application essays before fighting his way through the twenty-five problems Mrs. Statler had assigned in Trig. Sam had never thought triangles were so fascinating that there needed to be a whole year of everyone's high school career devoted to them.

He glared down at the paper in front of him again. _Name the person - living or dead, fictional or real - with whom you would most like to have dinner. You have no more than five hundred words._ Thomas Jefferson? No, because five hundred words wouldn't be enough to explain that while he admired the man's commitment to democracy, his inventiveness, and his literary merits, he was smart enough to know all about Sally Hemings too. Madeleine Albright? No - he didn't want them to think that he was trying too hard to prove his commitment to feminism. Plus, between Jefferson and Albright, there might be some weird fascination with Secretaries of State that he didn't want to reveal, let alone explore.

He was idly squishing his face between his hands, praying for inspiration, when the perfect, unassailable answer popped into his brain. His mother. 

_Although for most of my peers, sitting down to a home-cooked meal across the table from a loving mother is an everyday occurrence, for me it would be a unique experience._ There. He already had the first sentence, and the rest of the essay was unspooling in his mind, concise and creative and perfect.

A pang at using her death hit him, deep in his gut, and he quashed it ruthlessly. It wasn't like he was doing anything Dad hadn't done already, waving the banner of her death around, and anyway, he knew his mother would have wanted this for him. She would have been glad to see him go off to school, even if she would have kissed him goodbye with tears in her eyes.

She would have taken his side. He knew it, in his heart, and he bent his head and started to write.

*

"Go, go, go!" he shouted, watching as Dean whizzed by, totally focused on the knife flying toward him. Dean snatched it out of the air in mid-arc and plunged it deep in the . . . chestal area of the ugly thing Dad had identified as a centicore.

"Nice work, boys," Dad said, clicking the stopwatch off. It pissed Sam off to no end, seeing Dad leaning against the Impala just like Dean usually did, all careless leisure, like he wasn't asking his own _children_ to fight something that they should have been able to run screaming from.

"Sam!" Dad snapped, and Sam guessed, from the worried look on Dean's face, that he'd spaced out. "What else is the centicore known as?" Dad asked, making it clear with his exaggerated patience that he was repeating the question.

"Uh, eale, sir." Sam wasn't going to get into how hard it had been to find a knife carved from bone, or how pointless the whole exercise had been. Dean had known how to run and hunt and kill before tonight, and Sam had mastered research by the time he'd finished middle school. 

"Or?"

"Yale, sir." As if he didn't already have college on his mind.

But Dean broke out in a big grin when Dad nodded his approval, and Dad even sprang for burritos and sodas, so Sam just sat back and tried not to think too much.

*

"Sammy, are you getting shorter, or are you wearing the floor thin with all of that pacing?" Dean drawled as irritatingly as possible as he sprawled on the couch, eyes glued to the hot rod magazine in his hands.

Sam just sneered at him and kept pacing. He needed to figure out how to break the news, how to sell it; no one he knew had ever won an argument with Dad.

"Well, I know you didn't get some poor girl pregnant, since you're still saving yourself for Meg Ryan," Dean said, still not looking up from his stupid magazine. "Or is it Winona Ryder now?"

"I slept with Cindy Ballard two months ago, she came twice, and just . . . shut up, Dean," Sam said, not breaking stride.

Dean popped out of his sprawl faster than a jack-in-the-box. "You did? Why didn't you tell me, man? We could have celebrated!"

"For your information, Dean, most siblings don't go around sharing details about their sex lives with each other." God, why couldn't Dean just shut up?

But now Dean was looking intently at him. "What's the problem, man? Tell me and we'll figure it out together."

Of course that was when Dad walked in, still hobbling just a little because of his wrenched knee, with sandwiches from the deli down the block.

Sam's meatball sub was congealing right in front of his eyes, but anything he said would have been lost, drowned out by the noises Dad and Dean - especially Dean - made as they savored theirs. Sam waited until Dad had finished chewing his last bite before clearing his throat and starting the conversation.

"Dad," he said. "I got some really great news, about an amazing opportunity." Dad had a way of hiding his attention when it suited him, and Sam couldn't get a read on him; he braced himself and plowed ahead. "I found out that I got a full ride to Stanford, and I'm going - I mean, I need to be there by the middle of September." There - that should be humble and conciliatory enough, while still emphasizing how much he wanted this.

Dad didn't say anything for a few minutes, and Dean had apparently forgotten how to chew. There were storm clouds brewing on Dad's face, and Sam figured he needed to say something to turn the distance - California was just about two thousand miles from where they'd been circling - into a positive, or at least a non-issue. "Stanford - well, it's Ivy-level, but it's in California, so the weather should be good, and they don't give out a lot of full scholarships. So, you know, um, that's good."

There was an even longer, even worse silence, and this time the anger was clear on Dad's face; he looked like nothing so much as a predator, locking Sam in his sights. "Well," Dad finally said, his voice all silky as he cut right to the chase, "it sounds to me like you've got all of this worked out real nice for yourself. You want to quit. You think you're too good to hunt, that's fine." He stood, and his chair teetered behind him before crashing to the ground. His shadow stretched long and dark across the table.

"Dad!" Sam protested. "That's not what I - I was thinking, I could go there, and between quarters I could come back, help out on hunts, you know, and . . ." he cast desperately about, grasping at straws, "and even do some research while the school year is going on."

Dad's eyes were ice-cold. "You just want it both ways, don't you, Sam? You want to go off to your fancy school and still expect you'll have a home to come back to -"

Sam totally lost it then, jumping to his feet and snarling. "Oh, like we've ever had a home! We've moved every _month_ for the past _year and a half_ , so just spare me all the 'old Winchester home' shit!" He gulped down some air, forced himself to calm down. "All I was saying was that I could come back and hunt with you when school's out -"

"You don't know what a team is, what _family_ is," Dad snapped back, one emphatic finger jabbing at Sam's face. "You can't just come and go as you damn well please. You have to commit. Or you're out."

"What are you saying?" Sam whispered. In his worst imaginings, he'd never come up with this level of awfulness. He couldn't believe that Dean wasn't even saying anything, that he was leaving this all up to Sam.

" _Choose_ , Sam. Your family, and this job, or four years of overpriced education that's never going to get you anywhere."

"Dean?" Sam asked.

"Don't you _look_ at him!" Dad roared, and Dean, who'd been still as a statue, his eyes unnaturally wide and his jaw slack, flinched at that.

"You walk out on your brother and me, we won't be here when you come crawling back," Dad said flatly.

"Fi -!" Sam started to shout, before Dean spit out the meatball that had been in his mouth all that time and yelled, "SHUT UP! Sam, can it. And Dad, he's not walking out on us. He's trying to make this work, and you're not letting him." Dean took a deep breath. "Sammy, if you go, you can call me day or night and I'll pick up. You got me?" Without another word, Dean righted Dad's chair and walked out of the crappy apartment, eyes locked unseeingly in front of him; where he was going was anybody's guess.

The door slammed shut, and Sam looked warily at Dad out of the corner of his eye. "I don't want to choose. I shouldn't have to. Mom -"

"Your mother would have wanted you to stay _safe_ , Sam," Dad said, but his voice was softer, like he couldn't speak about her in rough tones.

"I will be. And I'll be back every break, I promise. Dad, please."

Dad didn't say anything, just sank back into his chair, looking like he'd been struck blind. 

*

Dad came out and said yes the next day, short and clipped, and Sam would have cheered, if he'd had the breath.

Dad stepped up his training, concentrating on things that could be done even in front of an audience, like running; Sam shaved a full two seconds off his time for the quarter-mile. Dad also started coming up with pop quizzes whenever he could catch Sam for thirty seconds straight, tests that made even Trig seem like a breeze.

Dean was somehow even worse. From his vast memory bank of cheesy eighties movies, he'd assembled a guide to college life that Sam was sure bore absolutely no relation to reality. He didn't need tips on what to do when horny sorority girls wanted to double-team him on a waterbed whose mattress was filled with beer, and just because he knew how to hack into someone's computer, that didn't mean that he'd slack off and change his F's to A's at the last minute.

When Dean was eagerly trying to explain the finer points of the orgies sure to follow all of the toga parties on campus, Sam put his hand over his big brother's face and _pushed_. Now _that_ was awesome.

*

Sam wasn't quite sure what exactly he'd been expecting, but for some reason the news that he'd be the valedictorian of Great Western Plains's class of 2002 hit him like a bowling ball to the stomach. He'd kind of always wanted to go to his own ceremony, unlike Dean, that heathen, but he'd also always figured that Dad's track record of wandering feet meant that he wouldn't be walking and would simply have to get his diploma from a P.O. box. It wasn't like Dad had anywhere to hang it, after all. For all he knew, Dean's could still be in the box they'd rented in a North Carolina post office.

And now he _had_ to go to the ceremony. Even Dad would see that. The whole town would be up in arms if the valedictorian snubbed them - that was definitely the way to spin it. 

He trudged happily along with the rest of the seniors to the football field for practice. The sun was shining for the first time in three cloud-covered weeks, and he closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the warmth. A sharp elbow to the ribs startled him. "Man," Dex said, his voice loud over his ever-present headphones, "don't you hear Mr. E calling you?"

Sam shook himself, seeing Mr. E looking right at him. "Val and Sal, any time you want to come up here, we could get this rehearsal going." _Val and Sal?_ Sam wondered. _Oh my God, he means valedictorian and salutatorian. They should have gotten the Latin teacher to run rehearsal, not a gym teacher._

As soon as he got to where Mr. E was standing, a pair of burly hands descended on his shoulders and swiveled him this way and that. "You'll lead the graduates in from over there" - swivel left - and you'll walk in rows of four to over there" - swivel right - "and then when everyone's lined up behind you, you'll start filing into the seats." The pressure on his shoulders suddenly got unpleasantly firm. "Don't sit down when you get to your seat. You'll all sit together, on my signal. Got it?"

It wasn't nearly as complicated as most of Dad's plans, or Dean's harebrained schemes, but Sam knew he had a tendency to flub the simple stuff because he was always worried about the more intricate stuff sure to come up next. "Got it, sir," he said, and Mr. E's eyes narrowed like he suspected that the title was mocking rather than involuntary. With one last squeeze, Sam's shoulders were finally released, and Sam went back to his seat, resolving to get Dean to give him a massage before they went to bed.

*

He couldn't believe it, but Dad and Dean were both there, sitting on the aisle - of course, because easy access to fighting space was of paramount importance at a high school graduation in the most boring town in the contiguous forty-eight states. Both of them were squinting at him through the late afternoon sunshine. They looked totally out of place next to the other families dressed in their best, with their jeans and beard-rough faces, but their eyes were drilled on him like they couldn't even see any of the other students, let alone their parents and siblings.

It looked like they were sharing one program between them, and Sam swallowed when he saw their heads duck down to look for his name, shining in metallic gold lettering. He played with the edges of his gold National Honor Society cord while he sat through the speech Leigh Clarkson, the senior class president, made, all about how they'd been through so much together, going to school with each other for twelve awesome years, and clapped automatically along with everyone else when she finally ended with an analogy to baby birds leaving the nest to make their own way in the world. He thought savagely of natural selection and smiled.

The ceremony dragged on as the sun started to sink, and Sam could barely hear half of the speeches over the humming of video cameras, and every few seconds another camera's flash would go off, brief and bright like a super-charged lightning bug. He was getting a little sleepy, actually, just sitting in his tent of a gown, dying to scratch under his stupid cap, the warm air still and heavy around him.

Whoops and hollers shattered the peacefulness of the scene as soon as his name was called. He blinked out into the audience, saw Dad and Dean standing and fist-pumping and grinning like a couple of Cheshire cats. A little murmur of disapproval ran through the audience, but the other seniors laughed, loosened up, and the rest of the evening flew right by on the strength of those cheers.

And after, when all of his classmates were posing with their parents for the cameras, Sam was weighed down by the weight of his dad's and his brother's arms, looped over his shoulders, as the three of them walked with their heads held high toward the prettiest car in the parking lot.

*

"Rooooooaaaaad triiiiiiip," Dean hollered obnoxiously, and even Dad smirked a little at that. Sam sighed and slumped down in his seat, mutely pleading with Dad to shut Dean up. "Dude, if you think I'm letting you go off without one last hurrah, then you're even dumber than you look," Dean explained carelessly, polishing the last of the knives.

"Dean, I have to be in Palo Alto in ten days for orientation."

"What, like sexual orientation? Come on, you can skip that."

"Dean!"

"Ten days is plenty of time for us to drive you to California, Sam," Dad said, turning the page of his newspaper. In his wildest dreams, Sam had never envisioned Dad being there when he walked into his dorm room for the first time. "You need anything you don't already have in your kit?"

"Um," Sam said stupidly, trying to read the list still clutched in his hand. A lifetime of living out of duffels meant he actually did have most of the essentials already. "Just, um, extra-long twin-sized sheets."

Dean snorted. "They saw you coming a mile away, didn't they, Sasquatch?" He shook his head. "Don't worry, I'll set you up real good."

Sam felt his stomach knot with anxiety.

*

Maybe if you weren't from a family of freaks, the sight of a college campus swarming with people, about half of them in shirts and visors in a peculiarly eye-catching shade of red, wouldn't have been so intimidating. The only familiar sight around was Dean's face, set in smug lines because he'd insisted on leaving the Impala at home; he'd put his foot down and said that he wasn't letting his precious baby within a thousand miles of the insanity of move-in day at the dorms. Score one point for Dean's dumb movies, at any rate.

The truck was more convenient in any case, and they each grabbed a bag from the flat bed after locking up. Sam spun around when he felt a hand on his back that wasn't Dean's, and had to look down, down, down until he saw the top of some girl's head. She had to be four-ten, at the very most, but she looked large and in charge with her clipboard, Stanford shirt, and practiced smile. "Name?" she asked, popping her gum.

"Winchester," he said. "Sam."

Her lips moved as she scanned the thick list. "Samuel J.?" she confirmed. "You're in Oak Creek. Step over to the table over there" - she pointed to a clump of trees with tables clustered around them - "to pick up your keys, your orientation packet, and your Good Stuff bucket."

No one else had his family waiting in line with him, but Dad and Dean were acting like top-flight secret service men, and there was no good way to ditch them. Sam consoled himself with the thought that given the size of the crowds, it was highly unlikely that anyone else was paying even an iota of attention to him.

At least, until Dean opened his mouth. "Winchester, Samuel J.," he announced, jerking his thumb at Sam. Without even waiting for the girl seated behind the table to flip through her folders, he steamrolled right on. "He's the one who got a full ride, so if you need any help with your homework, gorgeous, I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige."

"Dean!" he hissed, trying to smile in a way that indicated humility and non-threateningness. Or   
whatever the right word was.

But the girl seemed to have a decent sense of humor, because she just laughed it off, handed Sam his stuff, and wished him good luck.

*

Sam felt like a pack animal, burdened with all his duffels. Dean had snatched the Good Stuff bucket from him, and Dad was forging ahead like he didn't care if they followed, and not carrying a damn thing.

The universe was clearly looking out for Sam, though, and he'd have to give his guardian angel a high-five at some point, because Dad got his almost immediately. Sam knocked on the open door of his room, interrupting the conversation already in progress inside. "Hey, you must be Dale, right?"

"Yeah, you're Sam?"

"Yeah. This is my brother, Dean, and my dad." Dale nodded politely at them, but of course Dad and Dean looked suspicious.

"Isn't anyone going to introduce _me_?" a voice practically purred, and Sam turned to see Dale's mom, or possibly his much older sister, or aunt, or legal guardian, giving Dad the come-hither eyes and slinking over to him with her hand out like she expected him to kiss it. 

Given that Dad was more likely to take a bite out of it than play nice, Sam privately wished her luck on her doomed quest.

"Bonnie Southey," she finally said, sidling up to Dad when it became evident he wasn't going to do the gallant thing. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Dad twisted his wedding ring, and looked briefly at Dean in what Sam could only describe as a beseeching manner. It was hilarious, as was Dean's dropped-jaw pose of idiocy, but the effect wore off pretty damn quick when Sam realized he'd never seen his dad with any woman, that he still wore Mom's ring, and that for his fidelity at least, Dad deserved better.

Besides, Dale's embarrassed blush indicated that Sam had approximately three seconds to save his relationship with his new roommate. "Dad? Can you and Dean go get the rest of my stuff? Dale and Mrs. Southey and I can figure out which side of the room is mine."

Dad shot him a look of gratitude and disappeared so fast Sam was surprised there wasn't a puff of smoke behind him.

*

"Turn off the goddamn lights, Sam," Dale whined weakly from his bed. 

Sam grinned, finished tying his shoelaces, and launched into a loud and off-key lullaby. He hit the lights as he left the room, still humming, and left Dale to his dreams of busty blondes. Stretching his quads and planning out his route, he left the building and squinted into the sunlight that was just cracking the horizon. This early, it was still crisp out, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. He set out on his run, concentrating on his stride, looking at the girls jogging nearby, their long hair streaming out behind them.

College was _awesome._

*

"She decided to do study abroad," Sam moaned into the phone, lying on his bed and walking his feet up the cinderblock wall.

"Aw, Sammy, what'd I tell you about the dangers of older women?" Dean asked, sounding only a little amused underneath it all. "The girls here'll get your mind off her."

"Yeah," Sam sighed, thinking of Erica's smile. And maybe her cleavage in that purple dress she liked to wear. He'd bet that the purple number would be a big hit with the boys in France. "Where are you guys, anyway?"

"Montana, but we're heading to North Dakota in the morning. When're you coming home?"

"Three more finals, and then I'll need coordinates," Sam said; he couldn't believe he was already done with his first quarter of college. "I gotta head to the library. Tell Dad I said hi."

"Tell him yourself in a couple days," Dean answered. "See you soon."

He took a small detour to the campus store before heading to the library; he didn't have a lot of money saved up, but it was still worth it to get the red Cardinals coffee mug for Dean and a Stanford flask for holy water that Dad could keep in a jacket pocket.

*

Sam fiddled with the Velcro on his new ankle weights - Dad's Christmas gift to keep his workouts as difficult as possible - twisting the cuff on his right ankle to keep it positioned properly. He stood, then noticed his shoe was untied, and crouched back down.

Something slammed into him, and he toppled over. "What the -" he spit out, twisting to get his sights on his attacker.

A totally gorgeous girl was sprawled on the blacktop next to him, long blonde hair spilling every which way over her. Her knee was bleeding, but she was staring at him, looking like she didn't know whether to laugh or apologize.

"Um, not my finest hour," she finally said, then snorted and burst out laughing. "I'm really sorry! I thought you were getting up, and I figured I could get into stride right behind you."

"Why?" Sam asked, looking to make sure she wasn't cut or scraped anywhere else that he could see.

"I figured the sight of your butt would motivate me," she said, grinning at him while she redid her ponytail. "Like a mechanical bunny at a dog-track."

"Oh, um," Sam stuttered, considering the bizarreness of her simile. _Mechanical bunny?_ "I see."

"I'm Jess," she said, extending a scraped hand toward him.

"Sam," he said. He got to his feet and pulled her gently up while shaking her hand. She was tall and curvy, and the sight of her - any part of her, really - would be enough to motivate him too. She smiled like she could read his thoughts and brushed herself off. "Come on, then, if you're coming," he said, jogging backwards to keep her in sight.

Jess smiled at the challenge and put on a burst of speed, breezing right by him. He whooped and caught up.

  
"Marla Jean, Marla Jean!" Jess shrieked into the phone, like she had since seventh grade, when she and Marla Hepworth had shot up to nearly six feet and been treated like lepers until everyone else's growth spurts kicked in.

"Jessie Lee, Jessie Lee!" Marla responded, then giggled like a woman that someone was doing delicious things to.

"Oh, _please_ tell me you don't have some poor girl on your lap right now," Jess said, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, one, I bought a footbath yesterday after my French Empires class and I'm just now getting to try it out. And two, when did you become such a prude?"

"Would a prude be prepared to spill all sorts of dirty secrets to her best friend?" Jess asked, adjusting the pillow folded up behind her spine.

"Depends on the secret, I'd say," Marla mused. "Like, if it's 'oh my goodness, I had a moment of wondering what it would be like to hold Tommy's hand -'"

"Shut up. And his name is Sam."

"- okay, 'Sammy's hand, and then I swooned,' then, yeah, you'd be a prude. Which one is Sam, again? He's new, right?"

Jess didn't even bother affirming Marla's guess, a little distracted by the memories of Sam's big tan hands. "God, you don't even know what his hands do to me."

"Can't be any better than what Lily's tongue does to me," Marla said, and Jess could _hear_ her smirk.

"Sam's six-five."

"Lily's a natural blonde."

"We're moving in together in September."

"We got matching vibrators."

"Okay, okay!" Jess laughed. "You win." She opened and closed her mouth a few times, willing the next words to come forward.

"What is it, Jessie?" Marla asked, her voice gentler.

"I'm going to marry him," Jess finally said, a tear trickling down her face as her heart swelled with happiness. 

"Oh, honey! Does _he_ know that yet?" Marla whooped, and Jess laughed as the spell broke, then got down to business and told her everything.

*

It was at times like these that Jess wished she were more than just a takeout queen. It would be nice if she could cook a decent birthday dinner for Sam, maybe not anything fancy, but something that would make those pretty eyes of his light up and get him to pull her down on his lap and kiss her till her lips went numb.

She somberly surveyed the smoking wreckage of her contraband twenty-dollar toaster oven, sighed, and prayed that the smoke detector was too far down the hall to pick up on the goings-on in the corner dorm. There wasn't much else in the mini fridge that she could slap together - just Red Bull, beer, and leftover pad thai.

She could visualize her mother's hands, briskly chopping vegetables and effortlessly forming hamburger patties. Of course, it would be Richie who'd inherited all of mom's skills in the kitchen even though he could barely be bothered to chuck a bag of popcorn in the microwave. She checked her purse and went through the pockets of all of the clothes lying crumpled in the laundry basket and came up with twenty-seven dollars. It looked like it was going to be another Pizza Kitchen night.

Sam's eyes lit up anyway and he gave her that damn dimpled grin as he blew out the candle she'd jammed into the sad little vanilla cupcake that was all the Pizza Kitchen could come up with on such short notice. It took so little to make him happy.

His phone buzzed before she could cajole his wish out of him, and he excused himself politely before flipping it open. All she could hear before he got out of earshot was something like, "Coordinates, please," and she busied herself with pulling the candle free and licking errant icing from her fingers.

It took so little, and she was going to do it every day for the rest of her life.

*

You could find anything on the internet, if you knew where to look. Jess clicked and clicked while the mouse grew warm under her hand, not letting herself get impatient; if she was going to be spending the money she'd earned waitressing all through high school, evading all sorts of wandering hands, she was going to make damn sure she wasn't throwing it away. 

She jotted all of the numbers she found down on a couple of Post-Its, then stuck them to her mirror so that she'd have to look every time she brushed her hair or checked her teeth. 

Three weeks later, when she knew she'd done all the research she could stand, she went to the mall and got a free makeover, running the numbers in her head instead of listening to the makeup lady describing her skin tone with a frankly worrying level of detail. 

The guy at the used car lot never knew what hit him, just looked at her with his jaw hanging down around his knees, and she drove away in a bright blue 1983 Ford Mustang convertible with five hundred dollars still in her pocket. The only way Dad would've been prouder of her was if she'd named the thing the General Lee, but she figured one namesake in the family was enough.

*

"What is _this_?" Sam asked, with a revolted fascination that made her think he might have found her stash of tampons and depilatories, but he usually didn't have a problem with that stuff. He emerged from the closet with the object clutched in his hand and waved it under her nose accusatorily.

"It's a baton, Sam. Clearly." She rolled back onto her stomach and faced her Intro to Abnormal Psych notes again. This final was going to be a bitch and a half, and possibly she shouldn't have gone to class with a hangover quite so often.

"A baton, hmmm. _Why_ is it a baton?" Sam sounded downright smug. He only had to assemble a bibliography for his last history paper, and then he would be done for the year. Bastard.

"Who are you, Plato?" She dug around in the bag for a full Frito and not just crumbs.

"You're very funny."

"Yes, I know," she said. "Get me some more iced tea?"

"Are you too parched to answer the question?" Sam asked, grinning down at her. "Just tell me why there's a baton in your closet, and why it's important enough to be in a box of stuff you want to move into our new place."

"Then can I study in peace?" Sam nodded. "No follow-up questions?" He shook his head obediently. "Fine. It's mine. I used to be in beauty pageants all the time, and that was my talent - twirling a baton."

She waited for the flood of questions sure to follow; she read the same line six times before she gave up and looked up at him. He had his mouth open, a puzzled pout on his face, but he was staying true to his word and leaving her alone.

She sighed, shook her empty glass at him, and sat up. "Okay. So you know I'm the only girl in my family, right? My mom _really_ wanted a girl and kept trying until she had me, which is why I've got four older brothers. Anyway, while they were off playing football and being cub scouts and stuff, Mom would take me to these pageants, and . . . I don't know, it was kind of fun." There was no way she was telling him that the pageants were all on videotapes in her parents' living room shelves. "I won enough to pay for camp for a couple of summers." He still looked a little dumbfounded. "Can I get back to studying now, Sam?"

If he was good, maybe one day she'd put on one of the sparkly leotards and give him a private show.

*

If Sam didn't quit pacing, she was going to go after him with her fork. There was no reason for him to be nervous; he wasn't the one that had one more final to take the following afternoon. After that, she was going to sleep for a week and try not to miss him too much. 

It'd be fine. She'd take all her stuff down to her parents' house, let them fuss over her, and start looking through the apartment listings on her own. It would've been nice if Sam could have been there, but she already knew there was no way to talk him out of heading back to see his family.

"Jess," he said, so suddenly that she choked on a cherry tomato before she could swallow it down, "come with me."

She coughed to clear her throat. "Where?" She gestured at her salad, at the binder of lab notes lying on the table. "I've still got one more exam, Sam."

"Come home with me," he said, words coming in one long rush. As soon as it was out, he relaxed, stood in front of her without fidgeting and spoke without stammering. "I want you to meet my family."

He was looking at her like he expected her to laugh, to mock him. There was something there in the word _family_ that made his throat close up, and she had to tread gently. "Yeah," she said, smiling up at him. "Just let me ace this stupid chem final."

His grin was enormous, and she needed to remember to call Marla when she walked over to the auditorium for her exam.

*

Jess was toasting the end of finals hell with a couple of classmates, plastic spoons heaped high with frozen yogurt plinking against each other, when her phone buzzed. "Mmm," she said, tongue a little numb from the last bite of mint chocolate chip. _You good?_ said Sam's text, popping up on the screen. "Shit," she said, checking her watch. "I have to get home, you guys." She stood, wiping the table off with a crumpled napkin. "Have a great break!"

"Hey -" she started to say as she unlocked her door, but Sam's mouth cut her off, hot and eager. He pulled her inside, tossed the keys on her desk, which was suspiciously bare, and got his hands on her face.

All of her stress over finals had finally dissipated, and she was totally on board with whatever he had going on here. It felt like she was melting underneath his mouth, the heat of him was so intense, so focused on her. Her fingers were tangled in his hair, skating across the long line of his shoulders, moving too quickly for her brain to keep up, and she just barely registered the movement when he walked her backwards to her bed and bore her down.

His lips worked down her neck while his hand dove underneath her tank top. Touch by touch, he wiped away her last lingering thoughts of school, replacing them with images of him, strong and heavy on top of her, of what they must look like together, all tangled up and half-naked. Her hands pushing at his pants, at the sheets twisting insistently around them, she clutched him to her, arms and legs strong around him. His shoulder bumped her chin and he was lying on her hair, but she wouldn't change a thing. Not when Sam was hot and hard between her legs, not when he was dropping kisses all over her skin. Not when he was telling her that he'd never been happier than when he was with her.

*

Sam was quite possibly the cutest six-and-a-half-foot tall creature in existence. He'd gotten the car fully packed, the first mixtape he'd made for her loaded in the cassette player, and a jumbo cup of coffee waiting for her by the time she stumbled downstairs. "Ready?" he beamed, handing the coffee over before he even tried to kiss her, and boy, did she appreciate a man who could prioritize like that.

She slurped down a blissful mouthful of coffee and croaked, "Yeah."

He let her get out of Palo Alto without any comments, directed her to the freeway, and flipped open the soft-cover atlas he'd had resting on his knees.

She checked the traffic - not too bad, which was probably why he'd wanted to leave at ass o'clock in the morning - and put the coffee down, finding his hand by feel. When she squeezed, he squeezed back, and they sang along to all the godawful stuff he'd put on that damn tape.

And when they got to their first rest stop, she tackled him against a picnic table and kissed him and licked at his flashing dimples until he begged for mercy.

*

"We have showers in the dorms, you know," she said, amused and maybe a little turned on by the way Sam's eyes still got wide and worshipful whenever he saw her naked. "And I know I've forgotten my towel a couple of times in the laundry basket." She finished taking off her clothes and pulled her hair into a wobbly little bun; she'd wash it in the morning and let the summer breeze dry it out as they drove along.

"This is different," he said, eyes fixed on her like she was going to disappear if he looked away.

"Oh, yeah? How's that?"

For an answer, he stripped out of his clothes in the blink of an eye. Somebody call the Olympic committee - he was breaking all kinds of land-speed records tonight. Before she could even protest that she needed a shower to wash off the grime of the day, he'd picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. He got them both situated under the hot spray of the shower and started soaping her up, and she gave thanks for hotel rooms with oversized bathrooms.

They didn't actually get around to much in the shower; the tile was treacherously slippery and the miniature bar of soap - looking even tinier in Sam's giant hands - kept popping free of his grasp. But it served to get them both flushed and panting a little, and they raced for the bed still mostly damp, counting on friction to get them dry.

Sam's mouth followed beads of water around her skin, his hands holding her down as he made a meal of her. She strained against him, flipping them over, and took her time with him, here on this big soft bed, where he surrendered to her and let her savor her victory.

*

The first sign that said _Wichita_ blindsided her, even though she knew from Sam's painstaking navigating and budgeting for hotel rooms that they'd be reaching his house that day. She only had fifty miles to pull herself together and figure out how to win a place for herself in his family.

"Jess," he said, turning the music down low, "I love you."

"You better," she said.

"They will too," he promised, and she felt herself start to uncoil and maybe believe that it would all go swimmingly. Anyway, come hell or high water, Sam was _hers_. Her brothers could totally take Sam's.

"I need a restroom," Sam said carefully thirty minutes later, eyeing her with a complete and characteristic lack of subtlety. If he thought she needed time to get ready to face them, she wasn't going to disillusion him. 

"Sure," she said and swung the steering wheel to pull into the gas station on the corner. There was a cherry Slurpee calling her name.

*

She's never seen a picture of Sam's family, but she'd spent many profitable hours dreaming up what his parents must have looked like to produce a boy that looked like _him_ \- all long muscles and deep dimples. Frankly, they should have put a patent on their genes, because there was no way anyone was going to top _that_.

So it was maybe a little bit of a shock to pull the car up in front of a little house painted green and have somebody practically pull Sam out of the car with a "Why the hell do you look like Cousin Itt?"

The words were insulting and the voice was nice, but all she could see were two strong-looking forearms crossed over Sam's broad back, two hands fisting the back of Sam's sweaty T-shirt, and a little crest of light brown hair just peering over Sam's shoulder. The guy finally broke the hug, and Sam turned to include her. "Jess," he said, "this is my brother, Dean."

Dean gave her the elevator eyes in a way that looked more like he was trying to rile Sam up than actually planning on making a move on her. She crossed her arms over her chest - forget her brothers, _she_ could take Dean if he was going to be like that, because being totally hot did _not_ mean he could get away with shit like that - and the movement jolted his gaze up to where it belonged. She frowned a little, wondering even as she held her hand out to his why his eyes looked so familiar to her. He looked nothing like Sam, didn't even feel like him, with those calluses on his fingertips.

"You are _way_ out of my brother's league," he said, evidently thinking that he was paying her a compliment. "Just for the record." He squeezed her hand and let it drop and she smiled like this was all just a friendly meeting instead of the most nerve-racking thing since those weeks of haunting the post office, waiting to get her college admissions letters back.

"It's nice to meet you," Jess said politely, stepping to the side until she fit snugly up against Sam. Dean rose in her estimation when he got all of her luggage in one go out of the trunk and carried it inside, holding the door open for her with his foot. 

Dean looked down at her hand, clasped tightly in Sam's, and led the way down a hallway with really ugly carpeting to a bedroom she wouldn't have been able to pick out from a lineup. There were academic trophies on a low shelf above a desk that had a paperback dictionary and a hardbound bible stacked in one corner, and a thin blue bedspread on the twin bed, but there was nothing _Sam_ about the room. Maybe once he got unpacked, it would look more like the place where he had grown up and not just some anonymous motel room.

Sam looked around like Dean had asked for his sign-off, nodding at the desk and the stacked boxes sitting on the floor of the closet, smiling in disbelief at the debate championship trophies. "So," Sam said, his grip on her hand certain, if a little damp, "where's Dad?"

"Out getting some dinner and supplies," Dean said, then upended Sam's duffel on the bed. "I can start doing a load of laundry if you guys need it. I got some stuff of my own to throw in anyway."

She had a feeling she was actually going to like Dean.

*

Yeah, she really did have to pee, but there was no reason she couldn't investigate the contents of their medicine cabinet while she was in here, was there? The cabinet had been painted so many times the door didn't quite close, so it was pretty much like she had an engraved invitation anyway. She swung the door open and found a tube of toothpaste, a couple sticks of deodorant, and a small plastic comb like the kind her brothers used to come home with after Saturday morning trips to Buddy's barber shop. The cabinet was as bare as the rest of the house, and she got the feeling that something wasn't quite right. It wasn't like they were _squatting_ here, and they definitely weren't waiting to see if they liked her before pulling some giant lever that would flip the place inside out and reveal all of their actual stuff. Still. The house was a little stuffy, like maybe they'd just gotten back from a long trip. She struggled with the window, nearly painted shut, and as a cool breeze finally wafted in, she heard the sound of the front door shutting firmly.

Great. Sam's dad was finally home, and she was going to march out there, charm the hell out of him, and have him eating out of her hand in no time. She scrubbed furiously at her mouth, still bright red from the damn Slurpee, rinsed, and tossed her hair back over her shoulders.

Jess wrenched the door open and strode out to the living room. "Jess, this is my dad, John Winchester," Sam said, his nerves evident in his voice. A big, strong shape unfurled itself from the ratty couch and stood up. She looked up into a face she knew, somehow, better than her own, and fell forward into his arms.

  
Sammy's girl might have been a knockout, but she was no lightweight. John caught her as she staggered forward, pitching herself headlong into him. When he held her back at arms' length, thinking she might just have been overtired from driving almost two thousand miles, he saw that her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were cloudy. And her mouth was still that luscious red that drew his eyes down to it, a perfect little cherry.

He hastily handed her off to Sammy, who got his arm around her and steered her easily to the couch. In that moment, John could see that his boy was fast on his way to becoming a man, the kind of man that could keep a girl like this one happy. But then Dean cupped Sam's shoulder comfortingly, and Sammy was a little boy again, looking to his big brother to make sense out of this confusing world.

But Sammy wasn't the problem at hand. Jessica's eyelids fluttered as she came back to herself. She shook her head, then frowned and pressed one palm to her temple. Sam hunkered down to catch her gaze, smiling encouragingly at her, and taking her hands when she smiled back. "I need to call my parents, let them know we made it here," she said, still a little shaky, and John pointed to the kitchen, where the beat-up yellow phone hung, a pad of paper hanging from a hook beside it.

He didn't mean to eavesdrop, and he was pretty good at tuning things out, so he clomped into the kitchen after her to get some paper plates for the pizzas he'd picked up as he swung "home" from a meeting with Bill and Ellen. He still hadn't really had a chance to see the house Dean had rented for the summer, or appreciate how the kid had gotten it in shape for an extended visit from Sammy and his girl. They could only hope she wasn't the fussy type; what he'd seen so far was not exactly up to luxury standards. Still, apart from that little swooning fit, she seemed okay, and he could hear from the tone of her voice as she talked to her mother that she was relaxing, settling in, and it had definitely been good to see her and Sammy reaching out instinctively for each other - that meant a lot.

When she brushed by him to get back out to the living room, a little waft of sweet-smelling air tickled his nose. It had been too long since he'd gotten close enough to smell the shampoo or soap perfuming a woman's pretty hair or skin. He wondered if Sammy knew how damn lucky he was.

He peered out into the living room. Yeah, that ear-to-ear grin on his kid's face said he was in no doubt of the cosmic scale of his good luck. John could only hope that it would last.

*

Jessica ate like the third son he had never had while Sam wrapped one arm around her shoulders and reached for his fourth thick slice. She looked up just in time to catch the impressed look Dean was giving her and flushed a little. "I've got four older brothers," she explained sheepishly. "We weren't exactly the most civilized when we were growing up."

"Brian, Stephen, Richard, and Michael," Sam said, "right?"

Jessica wrinkled her nose at Sam, looking mighty pleased that Sam knew so much, as if John hadn't trained him to retain much more obscure information in any number of languages. He cleared his throat. "That's a good-sized family," he said, and she glanced sidelong at him, not wanting to turn away from Sam, and smiled. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say next; Dean had, happily, spared him the trial of having to deal with a girl who evidently had made up her mind that she wasn't going anywhere, and now here one sat, fresh from California, parked in his kitchen.

A girl who apparently thought that the way to winning over their family was to tell them all about hers. She launched into a seemingly endless monologue about the ups and downs of growing up as the overprotected princess, apple of her father's eye, and John could feel his ass going numb. He twisted his ring, trying not to wonder if he'd let the fixed smile drop off his face, when she cut herself off and blinked dazedly at his hands. "Love always," she said.

"What?" Sam asked. John figured his lovestruck son was the only one still paying attention to the girl's anecdote, something about a fight two of her brothers had had over a sweatshirt or something like that; Dean's gaze was still fixed on her, but he knew enough to be able to tell when the kid was just playing a part, damn fine actor though he usually was. "Jess?" Sam poked her, gently, a teasing smile on his face. "That's how your mom settled the argument? By saying 'love always'?"

"California kids," Dean tossed out to cover Jessica's continued silence. "Of course all that 'peace, love, togetherness' stuff works on them."

"Aw, shut up, Dean," Sam said, and Dean grinned unrepentantly. John sat back, belly full and a strange feeling of contentment coming over him. It was good to have both the boys back under one roof. Maybe college hadn't been the wrong call for Sam.

*

He couldn't keep his eyes open long enough to put in some real work on finding the demon; the drive back from Nebraska must have worn him out more than even Ellen and Bill's hospitality could fortify him. He stuck the faded picture of Mary, sunshine turning her hair to spun gold and her blouse to something damn near sheer, back into his notes to keep his place. 

He was getting tired more easily these days, worn down by work he would have sneezed at twenty years ago. His knee cracked ominously as he stood up from the kitchen table, and he flexed his back wearily before heading down the hall to the bedrooms. Both the boys' doors were ajar, and he could hear voices coming from the room Dean must have set aside for Sam, so he tucked the journal under his arm and peered in. Dean was holding a sheet, blanket, and pillow out to Sam, who was pulling a face. "There's no way a second person could fit in that bed with you, Sasquatch," Dean was saying as Jessica nodded her fervent agreement. "Sofa city for you, since I bet you're going to do the chivalrous thing and let your girlfriend have the real bed." As an aside to Jessica, he whispered loudly, "I taught him that."

"He's a real gentleman," she teased back. The door creaked, giving him away, and she turned her happy eyes to him. "Were we being too loud?" she asked apologetically.

Good God, she apparently thought he'd struggled mightily to blow out a hundred and fifty candles on his last birthday cake. "No," he managed to say somewhat pleasantly. "I'm turning in, but you should stay up and talk as late as you like. Sammy, I expect to see you on the sofa in the morning. Good night."

Jessica and Dean smirked at each other like bad kids watching the good kid get scolded while Sam went pink in the ears at the implication, finally accepted the bedding, and got to his feet. John was surprised that Sam hugged him around the shoulders as they left the room together, but Sam turned away too quickly for him to reciprocate. He'd always been a good kid.

*

John made his bleary-eyed way to the bathroom at the end of the hall and woke himself up by taking a long, satisfying piss. It was only when he got to the sink that he registered that the bathroom was different than it had been the night before. There was a bottle of expensive-smelling lotion tucked into the medicine cabinet, and there were new toothbrushes taking up the last two spots on the four-brush holder. Well, fine. Sammy and his girl were staying for at least a couple of weeks - he wasn't quite sure of all the details, but that much he remembered - and it would be unreasonable to expect her to live out of her bags for the entire visit. He supposed he should count himself lucky that there were no brassieres draped over the shower curtain rod.

He brushed, showered, and started a pot of coffee. From the utter silence, he figured he had at least an hour before any of the kids would be up and demanding breakfast, or at least caffeine. He spread his notes out on the kitchen table. All of the photocopies Bobby had mailed over to Bill and Ellen's bar said the same things that the man himself had said over the phone - that the thing that had killed Mary, that had burned her with a fire targeted so precisely that the firefighters and the arson experts at the FBI couldn't wrap their heads around it, was a demon.

Demons were still pretty new to him, but Bobby had been at great pains to explain that demons were different from the nasty shit he usually hunted; demons were an evolutionary step above, apparently. That meant that this one had had a plan, and that meant that he had to tell Dean so that they could put their heads together, figure out a decent line of defense, a plan of their own.

He took his mug of coffee out to the living room, where Sammy was sleeping on the couch, quieter than John remembered him being. The kid had grown some more, filled out a little, and basically looked like a lumberjack. But there was a long lock of hair falling across his face, just like there had always been back when he used to check on him after those earlier hunts, looking down at his baby while Dean hovered in the background, ready to attend to him. The years made no difference. His Paul Bunyan still had a baby face.

But Sam was old enough, now, to stand on his own two feet, maybe to marry that girl sleeping down the hall, and John knew he couldn't afford to let sentiment stop him from going after the thing that had slaughtered his wife. Even if it was the last thing he ever did, he could at least try to give his boys the peace their life had denied them by killing their mother’s murderer. Sam would have Jessica to console him, and Dean . . . well, maybe Dean could find a girl like Jessica too.

*

They snagged the last booth in the burger joint, and John couldn't help himself from cataloging the expenses this visit was creating. Dean caught his eye, and nodded; they'd need to drum up some cash pretty quick if they were going to be eating out and lazing around all day. And their staying put meant that the phony credit cards were not an option.

He would have expected Sam to remember that, given all the griping he'd had to put up with as the kid begged for all the branded toys and clothes his classmates routinely flaunted, but the boy had obviously gone dumb from prolonged exposure to a whole different lifestyle. And the fact that a beautiful girl was sitting so close she was practically on his lap, and feeding him a french fry for every one she popped into her own mouth. John didn't have to glance sideways at Dean to know they were both thinking the same thing - _lucky bastard_.

"What's good around here for dessert?" Jessica asked as she licked her fingers clean of ketchup. "I think I saw a bakery next door - is that any good?" She looked up at him and Dean through her eyelashes, her cheeks like little pink apples, and it struck John that the girl was a natural flirt, even when she meant nothing by it, maybe didn't even know she was doing it. 

Dean smiled back at her, but he was tense - John could tell from the pressure as Dean's shoulder brushed his. "Come on," she wheedled. "My treat."

"You and Sam go on ahead," John said. "Dean and I need to talk business for a few."

Dean knew the drill, signaled the waitress for coffee and the check, and answered the question Jessica had opened her mouth to ask. "We're private investigators. So much cooler than cops."

Her eyes danced, and Sam looked love-struck all over again. "Not without fedoras, you're not," Jessica giggled.

"Then we'll save up for those," Dean said, equally charming, and swung around to sit on their side of the booth after they got up.

John waited until Sam and Jessica, hand in hand, had cleared the door of the burger joint before starting in. "Got word -" was as far as he got before he realized he was addressing the frown wrinkling Dean's forehead instead of his son's usual attentive gaze. "What's wrong?" he asked, but Dean wouldn't answer except to shake his head. "When you figure it out, you let me know." 

He took a deep breath, psyching himself back up to bring his boy into the worst mess of their lives. "I got word from Bobby about the thing that killed your mother. Not -" he held up a hand to forestall the words he could see ready to burst from Dean, "not how to find it. What it is." Their coffee was sitting untouched in front of them, and John could see wisps of steam rising up, curling around Dean's hands, which had gone totally still. "It's a demon," he said.

Dean shivered.

*

"So, Dean," Jessica said, "you know I'm counting on you to give me all the best dirt on Sam."

"This one?" Dean asked, his shoulder nudging in Sam's direction while his mouth was full of the red velvet cake Jessica had brought home. "Too geeky to have _made_ lots of dirt." He   
pointed with his fork at the bakery box. "Dad? You want?"

John shook his head, knowing he needed caffeine and not sugar. "Don't like cake," he said shortly. He could tell, even when he turned his back to them to start the coffee machine up, that the boys were making disbelieving faces at one another. "I like cupcakes. Those, you don't have to share."

"Huh," was all Jessica said, a sound halfway between a gasp and an agreement, but when he looked at her, her eyes were down and she was gripping the arms of her chair tight enough that her knuckles had gone white. "So, Dean?" she repeated brightly. "You've got no fun stories about Sam growing up? He never did _anything_ embarrassing?" John was impressed; if he hadn't seen her hands, just heard her voice, he'd never have guessed anything was wrong. What kind of an actress had Sam brought home? The only way to figure out her game was to play it.

"Sam was always a good kid," he said, watching the way pleased surprise flashed across Sam's face and something that looked like pride shone from both Dean and Jessica. "But he still did plenty of embarrassing things. Remember 'The Great Samini'?" Jessica's eyes went wide and interested, Sam got red in patches all over his face, and Dean, who had been efficiently chomping away at the last slice of the cake, choked on what looked like a herculean mouthful of cream cheese frosting.

"Dude," Dean said, and for a moment, John couldn't tell if Dean was chastising him or reveling in the memories. Dean settled the question quickly enough, turning to Sammy with a smirk on his face and a smear of white on his chin. "That's right! You totally had a geeky magician phase where you had card tricks and knotted handkerchiefs and _patter_ that you wrote out on little three-by-five notecards!" His wicked glance swept across Jessica but he clearly didn't bother to consider if she would be offended by where his mind automatically went. "Hey, I bet Jess'd be your lovely assistant. Bet she'd even hold your wand for you."

John watched as Jessica smiled and cheered Sam for wrestling Dean, who was still laughing, to the floor. Whatever had gotten her so tense before, she'd locked it down tight. Still, John thought, it was worth keeping an eye on her. He almost gave Dean the nod, to confirm that they should follow up on the kid's inchoate suspicions, but couldn't in good conscience burden him with this too, not after Bobby's thunderbolt from the blue. He'd just have to do it himself.

*

He woke to light fingers on his cheek, running through his hair. He cracked open his bleary eyes and saw a shimmer of gold. "Mary," he whispered, smiling at his own surprise, but then his hand felt the leather cover of his journal, splayed open on his chest, and he knew that he was awake and remembered that she was dead.

Jessica was leaning over him, smiling like the sun. "Yes," she said, "it's me." Her hand was soft, palming his cheek tenderly, and she looked like heaven. He felt frantically along the bedside table, hand passing over pens, his beeper, and the alarm clock before finding the Stanford flask Sammy had given him at Christmas.

She sputtered when the liquid hit her face. "Holy water?" she asked, looking confused. "But I'm not . . . Wait, how do you . . . ? Oh, John, we have _so_ much to talk about."

It was the tone of her voice that made him slip, let belief sneak right into him. "Mary," he whispered again, less certain and more agonized than before, and she nodded, her eyes full of unshed tears, grabbed his rough hair in the old familiar way, and planted one on him. 

"I guess I'm back," she said, then laughed against his mouth, and that was when he knew for sure who he was holding in his arms, even if he didn't know how the hell any of this was possible.

  
Dean followed his nose to the kitchen and rubbed his eyes until he was sure they weren't playing tricks on him. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper, a mug of hot coffee and a plate of eggs in front of him. And Jess was standing by the stove, her hair in a floppy little bun, testing the edges of the omelet in the pan with a spatula.

"Morning," she chirped, all cheerful and welcoming like _she_ belonged here and _he_ was the guest. "You want this one, or do you like your eggs a different way?"

"Whatever's easier," he mumbled, too surprised to think strategically and ask for something that would have kept her busy for a few minutes more, and let him figure out with Dad what exactly was going on.

"Eat it before it gets cold," Dad said from behind his paper after she'd slid a plate with the omelet in front of him and turned back to the stove to start another one. Dad's voice sounded weird, but still more relaxed than tense, so Dean figured he could get away with interrupting whatever research Dad might have been doing.

He plucked the edge of the newspaper down enough to catch Dad's eye and frowned when Dad showed no sign of understanding any of his unspoken questions. There was a smile on the man's face, though, and Dean let the paper go in favor of digging into his eggs as he'd been commanded.   
Something was definitely up.

"You've been holding out on me," Sam said, voice all scratchy from sleep. "Since when can you cook?"

"Oh, it all just clicked into place," Jess said with a secret smile in her voice. "No, sit," she said, evading Sam's questing hands, "or you won't get any breakfast." She spun away from the table, back to the counter, and chopped up more peppers for Sam's eggs; Dean watched her move quick and sure around the kitchen, the knife almost an extension of her hands rather than a tool she'd just picked up.

That feeling of _not right_ started screaming within him, and he knew he was going to have to stop her, whatever she was. Even if she did make omelets exactly the way he liked them.

*

"Dad," Dean said again, not letting any of his frustration over the repetition, over the whole situation, tip over into his voice. "Somethin's not right."

Dad just scoffed, smiling, _still smiling_ , like he hadn't trained Dean himself, told Dean over and over that there was no good substitute for plain old instinct. Like his own life hadn't been saved by Dean's goddamn gut feelings more than once. "I'm not getting any kind of a bad vibe off her," Dad said dismissively. "Jessica."

Did Dad think this was _fun_ for him, seeing Sammy targeted by something he couldn't figure out? He'd seen the way the kid looked at her, totally wrapped around her little finger - _bait_. Sammy wasn't going to accept that there was anything wrong with his golden girl, would probably try to fight him if he said anything, let alone made a move. He _had_ to get Dad to listen.

"It's got to be hard for you," Dad said, and Dean couldn't help nodding in relief, but he froze when Dad continued, "seeing Sam wanting to spend all his time with someone other than you."

For fuck's sake. "I'm not jealous," he said evenly. "Dad, please, something's going on. I can feel it right here." He brought a fist up to his gut.

Dad looked at him for a long moment, like he had to weigh his words carefully, had to figure out what would get through to him; Dean felt his hackles rise despite himself. 

"Dean," Dad said finally, "I know you're feeling jittery, but it's not Jessica you're reacting to. It's your mother." Despite knowing what Dad would infer from it, that word was enough to make Dean go still as if he had a gut wound that wouldn't quit bleeding, pulsing through his outspread fingers. "You're anxious to figure out how to kill the thing that took her from us." Dad's hands opened and parted in front of him - holding nothing and hiding nothing. "Will you trust me when I tell you that that's what's getting you all keyed up?" 

Dean could feel himself deflating. Dad had trained him, and he'd never once steered him wrong. And Dean couldn't deny the itch he was feeling under his skin, to make his move, to win back the life that had been stolen from them all. "Yes, sir," he said, and Dad gave him a brief, sad-eyed smile.

"We still don't know _why_ it killed her," Dad said, starting to pace as he thought everything through. "So there's nothing to say it couldn't happen again." He caught the look Dean gave him and amended, "To some other family." Dad twisted his wedding ring around like it was a worry bead as he continued to pace and plan. "I'll stay here, keep pestering Bobby and maybe Jim, do some research with what I've got. I need you to hit the road, try to hook up with Caleb or Jefferson, see what you can get out of them or their contacts."

Dean stood up straighter. This was Dad handing him his dream. "Yes, sir," he said again, feeling the anticipation thrumming through his veins so loudly it nearly deafened him. It took a couple of moments for him to register that Dad was holding out the keys to the Impala.

"I'm trusting you," Dad said. "I always have."

*

The car purred all around him as they flew down the highway. His fingers itched to blast some tunes, but he kept the cassette deck empty; he needed some time to figure out what his plan of attack was going to be. He guessed he could call Caleb, but the man was no tactician; he was more of a blast first, ask questions later kind of guy. What Dean really needed was someone with a grasp of the bigger picture. Jefferson was his best bet, not that he would answer his phone or be reachable by any means other than showing up on his doorstep.

Mind made up, Dean pointed the Impala northwest, in the direction of Alliance, and popped _Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap_ into the empty mouth of the stereo system. Singing along cleared his head, and he rode the wave of music all the way to the next fill-up station, where he washed and waxed the car until she looked like she was in fighting condition too.

*

Dean fought his way through the knee-high weeds and knocked on Jefferson’s faded cellar doors, waited three minutes, knocked again, and then drew back the big deadbolts. "Jefferson?" he called out as he descended the steps that still smelled sharply of freshly cut wood. "It's Dean Winchester." He kept a running catalog of the customized weapons that lined Jeff’s cellar walls, gleaming behind the thick netting he knotted himself, quicker than anyone with two whole hands possibly could.

He made his way through the warren of rooms Jeff had carved out of the earth, even stuck his head into Jeff's workshop, although the last time he'd done that, a dozen years ago, Jeff and Dad had chimed in together like they were backup singers working in unison, "You want to lose an eye?" and made him snort at the thought of the two of them as the Pips.

No Jefferson. He climbed the stairs, found his way into a large room he vaguely remembered. The wood paneling was starting to warp, but Jeff still kept it polished all the way up to the ceiling. Dean wandered around, still calling out every once in a while, but getting more and more certain Jeff wasn't home but hadn't planned to be gone for long. The spacious kitchen was empty and the cupboards were fully stocked. And right there, pinned to the fridge with a Jim Beam magnet, was a calendar marked up in Jeff's cramped, hurt-looking writing; he apparently wouldn't be back until the next day.

It was nothing like a reprieve. The tightness in his stomach that he'd been attributing to Jess was only getting worse; Dad was trusting him to ask the right questions, make the right connections, and he couldn't get started without Jefferson to light a few paths. He had no desire to stick around here anymore.

*

The bar was missing a sign, but it was clear enough from the full parking lot and the noise flowing from the open door to figure out what kind of joint it was. Dean pulled in and took a look around. Nobody in the crowd stood out in his quick scan upon entering, so he hunkered down at the bar.

He'd thought that a couple of beers would relax him, but every new song on the jukebox got his shoulders to tighten, until he had folded himself down over his drink.

"Usually I like the strong, silent type, but you're taking it a little too far for my taste," said a voice from two barstools away, and _Christ_ , when had he stopped paying any attention at all? He turned his head and saw a girl, older than him, maybe, with dark hair and strong eyebrows over the most direct gaze he'd encountered since Dad had waved him off on this quest.

"Hey," he said, then took another pull from the bottle.

"It speaks," she said with a little smirk, but Dean had seen her gaze drop down to his mouth, and he didn't feel like being a dick.

"I'm Dean," he said, swiveling on his stool to face her fully. "Can I buy you a beer?"

She tipped her bottle back for the last few swallows, then met his eyes again. She hesitated, a muscle in her throat jumping just for a second. "No need, handsome," she finally said. "But I'll tell you this for free: whatever you're after, you're going to get it."

"Really?" he asked. That was a new one. A curl of ink on her skin caught his eye as he put one foot on the floor to steady himself for this weird conversation. He leaned over and read her tattoo. "'Jesse Forever,' huh?"

"So I'm not so good with my own life, but trust me - I'm solid as a rock on other people's." She pinned him with her light eyes. White eyes were no longer accepted as a sign of a witch, he reminded himself. "And I wish I were talking about a little fun back at my place, but you know I'm not." She waited, but he stayed stubbornly silent. She sighed and gestured for another beer with a decisive motion of her hand. "You're really going to make me say it? Fine. I'm pretty familiar with your line of work, and I may not know the specifics of your particular situation, but I can see that you're on the right track being here."

He had no idea what to say, so he just sat there dumbly, watching her efficiently put away the beer, pluck a few bills from her pocket, and shrug back into the leather jacket she'd been sitting on. She looked back over at him at the end and smiled in a way that made her look years younger. "Dean," she said. "Here's a kiss for luck." She stepped close and kissed him thoroughly. She tasted like beer and her fingers on his neck were cool. He steadied himself with hands on her waist but still stumbled when she broke the kiss and walked away, eyes like lasers as she looked over her shoulder as a goodbye.

*

"Kid," Jefferson said, knocking his scarred knuckles against the driver's-side window of the Impala, and Dean jerked awake, barely missed kissing the horn with his elbow, and rolled down the window. "You never used to have a predilection for camping, far as I remember," Jeff said in that dry voice that both invited and shut down any response but a straight one. "Why the hell didn't you sling that skinny butt of yours into a bed inside?"

"Hey, Professor," Dean said, brushing gunk out of his eyes with a dry fingertip. "Didn't want to just waltz in like the place was mine."

"Dean, sometimes I wonder about you," was all Jefferson said, but he smiled and beckoned Dean to follow him. "Sausage and eggs good?"

"You don't have to -" Dean stuttered out before he got the full effect of Jefferson's implacable gaze and crossed arms. "I mean, I'm already gonna ask a favor, so . . ."

"I might have more than one favor in me," Jeff retorted. "Even for a punk like you." His gnarled hand came up and cupped Dean's cheek.

The kitchen was brighter in the morning light, pleasant to be in, especially with the smells of homemade sausage and freshly squeezed orange juice perfuming the air. Jefferson got to work right away, his diminished hands steady on his special knives as he made breakfast and let Dean sit quietly in the sunlight.

Dean remembered that Jeff was strict about keeping mealtimes free of work, so he kept his peace and pulled the comics out of the thick newspaper Jeff offered him. Calvin was going for the gusto today, apparently, and Dean, remembering Sam's adventures in dressing himself, felt every last bit of Hobbes's desire to distance himself from this disaster in the making.

He wiped the crumbs of buttered toast from his mouth with the back of one hand, then took his and Jeff's plates to the sink and washed them clean. When he turned away from the sink, Jeff was watching him closely, but still kindly, like he hadn't yet worn out his welcome.

"Let's hear it, son," Jeff said, and Dean jerked his eyes up from Jefferson's veined forearms and hands to meet that steady brown gaze. His voice sounded a disbelieving note. "You wanting to branch out on your own?"

"No!" Dean blurted out, taken aback. "I'm . . . Dad says he found out that the thing that killed Mom, my mom, was a demon. I figured you'd know where to go from there."

"Demons," was all Jefferson said, but low enough that the word sent prickles up Dean's spine just as Jeff bent his head like he had been sapped of all his strength.

"A demon, that's a personal enemy, no mistake about that, with the way your mother was killed." She had been so beautiful, and she had gone up in a column of flame, and Dean wanted to keep her death private, not have it picked over by so many lonely men, but he wanted to put her to rest too.

"The first thing we need to do is figure out what it was doing with her, why it wanted her." Jefferson said quietly.

"I don't know. When I count up all I know about her, really know, it's not that much." He could remember her vaguely as a golden shape, and he'd seen the pictures Dad had tucked into the journal and his wallet - never for more than a split-second, always scrabbling for answers or an insurance card that verified the names they'd given whatever hospital they happened to be in - and carried away an image of her bright hair and candid eyes. It was hard to believe that the little rugrat she was holding, one palm on his ugly mop of hair, was him. If he closed his eyes, he could see the line of her hand as it curled protectively around him.

"So maybe we should proceed with a practical course instead of a more theoretical one," Jeff said like he was simply musing out loud like he must've when he'd been his students' favorite professor for however many years running. "I think Caleb is your best bet here. Unlikely as it sounds, he is the only hunter I know who has actually faced a demon and lived to tell the tale."

"Is he around?" Dean asked around a half-stifled yawn; Jeff had put enough on his plate to send anyone into a food coma.

"I'll find out while you get some shuteye for a couple of hours." Jefferson raised his hands to shut him up before he could even start protesting. "I remember being your age, son. Caleb might not, and he's never been good at putting himself in another man's shoes. Get upstairs and keep your boots off my blankets."

*

He dialed the familiar number as he climbed the stairs, too tired to say hello when Sammy picked up. 

"Quit breathing at me, you freaky pervert," Sam muttered after a second's pause, and Dean smiled at how transparent the kid was, trying to figure out just from the sound of his brother's respiration if everything was okay. At least when _he_ did it, he wasn't broadcasting it all over the damn place.

"You want me to quit breathing? That's not nice, Sammy," he teased. "You'd think getting laid on the regular would've gotten you to unclench just a little."

Sam's answering laugh sounded half-hearted, but that could just have been the phone slipping away from his ear as he bent to unlace his boots. "Seriously, dude," he said, straightening back up, "I'm fine. Jeff still cooks a mean breakfast."

"So does Jess," Sammy said, "and I'm apparently now late for lunch. Thanks a lot."

"Get a move on, bitch," Dean said, smiling as he flipped the phone shut against his chest and tipped over sideways and let the bed catch him.

*

"Man, am I glad you swanned into town just now, kid," Caleb said, lighting another of his foul, coal-black cigarettes before he continued to rummage in the trunk of his beat-to-shit car. "Got a hunt, could maybe use a partner. Just for the one gig."

Dean nodded, ready for some action, ready to hear something in his head besides his father's directive and Jefferson's insistent, "Take care of yourself, Dean," mumbled like a charm against his vanishing back. "What do you got?"

"Werewolf. Can't say I don't treat you right." He grinned around the smoke stick. "Daylight's burning, so let's get a move on."

Dean rolled his eyes and climbed into the passenger seat of the rusted out Mustang; poor thing had probably been pretty once upon a time, could still be a looker if Caleb spent a fraction of the time he devoted to polishing his already spotless weapons.

"I saw that, smartass," Caleb called as he walked around to get to the driver's side. "The minute you think you're enough of a grown-ass man to lead a hunt like this, you just say the word."

"Really?"

"No, not really, nitwit. Do I look like I want to be following the lead of some kid who just stopped sucking his thumb two weeks ago?" Caleb bit out.

"You have an interesting grasp of chronology."

"You better have an interesting grasp on which direction we need to be headed, since you're in the navigator's seat."

"Whatever you say," Dean said, hiding a grin that would only get him deeper into trouble. "Put her in drive."

"My car's got bigger balls than you, kid. Show him some respect."

*

There was no feeling like this, the way the hair on the back of his neck stood on end while his heart beat fast and happy, the sensation that he'd turned himself into a weapon, and could rid the world of some evil thing before the day was done and he had to say goodnight.

The werewolf didn't even bother going for Caleb, and Dean thought up a dozen jokes as he ran, all about finicky eaters and how Caleb had to be less than prime-grade meat. No question he made the better bait, and Dean let it chase him, working the angles in his head, wondering if the thing was going to make its move before Caleb made his.

He hit a clearing that was perfect, and turned, figuring Caleb had to have the thing well in his sights now, but there was no shot ringing out to split the night, and the firefighter who'd wolfed out kept closing inexorably in on him, eyes gleaming light and bright with the desire to eat his heart. Dad would have made this thing into worm food by now. Dean raised his arm, leveled the gun, and nailed it right in the heart.

"Caleb?" he hollered out. "What the fuck, man?" He looked down at the body, figured they were deep enough in the woods that predators - _other_ predators - would take care of the flesh, and set out to find the guy. 

He had the trunk of his car open, and he was disassembling a heavy-duty mother of a rifle. "Gun jammed," was all Caleb would say when Dean came up and gave him a raised eyebrow, but it didn't take a genius to read the fury and frustration on the guy's face, so Dean kept his mouth shut, just got in the passenger seat and nodded when Caleb asked gruffly, "You sure it's done?"

He wasn't all that surprised when Caleb stopped the car at the first bar they saw on their way back.

It wasn't a hunters' bar, not by a long shot. "Hey," Dean said into Caleb's shoulder as he came up behind him. "We won't exactly blend."

"They can damn well blend to us," Caleb snapped back, and Dean got the message; Caleb was going to get hammered, forget about the hunt, and not be of any damn use until about this time tomorrow. He watched Caleb take off for the back room, sighed, and headed for the nearly empty bar. One beer wouldn't kill him. And he could use a closer look at that pretty bartender done up in a vest and tie, all alone up there behind the bar.

She smiled when she saw him coming, tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder, and he grinned back. Yeah, she was worth the trip. "What can I get you?" she asked.

"Whatever you've got on tap," he said, and handed over his ID when she made the impatient _give it here_ gesture with her fingers.

"You got it, Dean," she said, handing it back, and turned to get a glass from under the bar. The big guy on the only occupied stool, down at the end of the line, started muttering a little louder, but she clearly knew that ignoring him was the way to handle him. She set the glass down in front of Dean, then turned away before he could lift it appreciatively to her, saying, "Napkin."

The napkins were apparently in that same corner under the bar, and when she got over there, the big guy’s hand darted out and closed around her tie. He dragged her close. "I _said_ , 'I want my keys back, you bitch.'" His arm shook from alcohol and adrenaline, and Dean could see that he was making her shake too.

Dean slipped off his stool and came up behind the guy. "If you let her go, I think she'll have a better chance at finding your keys," he said conversationally.

" _Now_ , bitch!" the guy yelled, and she had that look on her face that Dean hated, that look where she'd plead for her life if she only got the chance; that look was pretty much the reason he did what he did every day of his life. He slammed the heel of one hand into the guy's skull, got his other arm around the guy's neck when his head snapped forward. In his confusion over the new attack, the guy loosened his grip on her tie, and the girl slithered away, still trembling.

The guy was flailing, trying to turn to get a good swing in, but Dean wasn't about to let him go anywhere until he was good and ready for it. He squeezed at the guy's neck again until his movements started to slow down, then let him go. The guy, running on fumes, turned and took a wild swing; he missed, but Dean didn't, and one punch to his cheekbone and the guy was laid out, lying half on the bar and half on the stool, slowly slipping down.

The girl came around the bar. "My hero," she said, and Dean was pretty sure she'd meant to keep the wobble out of her voice, but he didn't call her on it. She straightened her back, fixed her tie, and coolly appraised the drunk; Dean approved. "I'll grab his arms, you get his legs?" she asked, and they got to work. "Right through here," she said, pushing open a door with her backside, and they deposited him in the alley behind the bar.

"He come here a lot?" Dean asked as they dusted off their hands and headed back inside.

"Never seen him before," she said. "Good thing it's a slow night."

"Why's that?"

She pulled him down into a kiss, let him move forward until her back was touching the wall and his hips were pinning her in place against it. The kiss was long and luxurious, and Dean liked where this was going. He kept one hand on her cheek and let the other drift down to loosen her tie and work on all those little buttons running down her shirt. 

She pulled her hands away from his hair to peel the shirt open. Sitting just above her collarbone, accentuated by a couple of stray freckles, was a gold chain that spelled out _Jamie_. He didn't have a lot of time to admire the sight, because she was a fast worker; she had her hands on his bare ass, pulling him to her, before he could do more than kiss his way down her throat. But he took the cue, hefted her up so she could wrap her long, long legs around him, and got her right where he wanted her. She was moaning with his every thrust, little sighs he'd bet she didn't know she was letting escape, and he was feeling pretty pleased with himself when the front clasp of her bra gave out, smacking him on the bridge of his nose. He knew a sign from the universe when he saw one; he got his mouth on her warm skin and listened as her sighs got louder.

*

"That thunderous sound you hear? Is Caleb snoring," Dean said. "And he _reeks_." 

He wasn't kidding about the strength of the alcoholic fumes Caleb was breathing out; he rolled down the windows and got a whiff of nice fresh air. 

Lights coming on behind him made him glance in the rearview mirror, and he laughed as he realized that the only mark on him tonight was a scar from Jamie's bra; the werewolf hadn't left a scratch. And he never had gotten that beer.

"Now are you gonna tell me what's up or what?" It wasn't like Sam to have so little to say; even when the little geek was at school, he'd talk for hours at a time about classes he was taking, books he'd been reading, and all kinds of other things that Dean had never really understood the way Sam evidently wanted him to. "Spill, dumbass," he said.

"It's Jess," Sam said, reluctantly, and all of the twisting in Dean's gut came back with a vengeance; he'd _known_ something was off, but he'd let Dad talk him out of it, and now Sammy was paying the price. "She's been, I don't know, man, weird since you left. And _don't_ say it's because she's pining over you."

Dean was in no mood for jokes about which of them was the handsome one. "Sam," was all he could get out.

"All she does is hang out with Dad. Last night I found them having coffee on the porch."

Wait, that didn't sound bad at all. "Isn't that what you wanted? For her to meet Dad and for them to get to know each other?"

"Well, yeah, but . . ."

The knot in his stomach uncoiled, and Dean took as deep a breath as he could while fighting a smile. "Aw, Princess, you feelin' left out of their little coffee klatch?"

Sam couldn't quite hold back his snort. "Shut up, Dean."

*

"Caleb," Dean said mercilessly, waving a plate of greasy eggs and bacon near the man's nose. "Caleb Caleb Caleb."

"Jesus fucking Christ, _what_ ," Caleb spat, then groaned at the volume of his own voice. "Unbunch your panties and leave me alone."

"Only way I'm getting out of your hair -" Dean paused, looking at the shine from Caleb's bald head, "- off your back, whatever, is if you do what I goddamn asked you to do before we went off to chase werewolves."

"God, Winchesters are the worst," Caleb croaked. But he sat up long enough to get Dean's hangover-curing breakfast in him, and when he finally finished, he looked almost human. "So, tough guy? What is it?" He belched unapologetically and left the dishes where they were.

"Dad and Bobby figured out somehow that the thing that killed my mother was a demon," Dean said, just like he'd practiced; Caleb had never treated him like the son he wished he'd had, not like Bobby or Jefferson did, and Caleb had never once looked at him as a motherless child, just a soldier. Caleb had to be handled with care.

"So? Why aren't you leaning on Singer, then, if he's got it all figured out?"

"Dad's doing that. I'm looking for stuff they might miss."

"And you came to _me_?" Caleb shook his head, winced, and then laid his scarred fists on the table between them. "Look, you need firepower, I'm your guy. You need another guy to run the traps, I can do it. But I ain't a cop - I don't give a good goddamn why these things do what they do."

Dean nodded, swallowing to keep the water out of his eyes. He _knew_ all that, and still had decided to waste time on the off-chance that Caleb would break pattern and actually be willing to do a little thinking. He still couldn't call Dad and give him even a shred of useful information.

"Hey, kid," he heard, and Caleb was looking at him, right at him like he was considering something that hadn't been his mind just a second ago. "There is someone I know, might be able to help you out. Rufus Turner. Just don't tell him I sent you."

*

It took him a couple of minutes to realize that the weird growling noise wasn't the Impala warning him of impending doom; it was his own stomach reminding him he hadn't bothered to eat before tearing off for Rufus Turner's house, still two states away. He figured he should fill up the tank and look around for a decent diner, someplace where they'd serve him pie and leave him alone; he didn't even bother wishing for a decent jukebox, not when he was too tense to enjoy it.

He pulled into a fill-up station, opting for the self-serve pump. He filled her up, stretching the muscles in his legs and back as she drank the gasoline down. The air was hazy and hot, an occasional breeze bringing by the scent of freshly cut grass. He knew he needed real food, but he still took a gander at the candy bars lining the shelves of the tiny convenience store. "You got a restroom?" he asked, and the guy behind the counter didn't even look up from his lotto ticket to point to the back. No key needed, apparently, because the door was busted.

He pushed it open with his shoulder and stopped dead in surprise. There was a girl standing there in nothing but a bikini top and a little tiny skirt that barely cleared her ass, and she was pinching her nipples through the top to make them stand at attention. Dean leaned against the door frame and enjoyed the show.

It was only when she leaned closer to the mirror to put on some kind of complicated looking eye makeup that she caught him in the reflection and jumped back. "Oh! You scared me!"

"Sorry about that," he said, "but I do need to use the facilities."

"Can you give me, like, two minutes?" she asked, already turning back to the mirror. "I just need to finish my face before this audition, and the ladies' room key disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle, like, weeks ago."

"What're you auditioning for?" he asked; it figured a girl this pretty wouldn't want to be a gas station attendant for the rest of her life.

"To be the new El Sol girl. You know, the beer? 'Go someplace better'?" She saw him shake his head. "Whatever. The point is, it's either this or I hitchhike to L.A. I'm getting out of here." She pulled a tube of lipstick out of her pocket - how she'd fit anything in there, Dean had no idea, since the skirt looked like it'd been painted on - and hesitated, looking up at him. "Give me a kiss for luck?" she asked, and Dean obliged.

*

Rufus Turner was the most cantankerous bastard Dean had ever known; sure, Dad might be equally irritable, but he wasn't a _bastard_ about it - once you knew the rules, they were pretty easy to follow, and he was pretty happy. But Rufus didn't seem to have any rules, or at least not any set rules, since they changed as his mood took him.

"You said you wanted _help_. So I'm giving you _help_ , not all the answers. Fools did some of their own work instead of coming to me all the time, world would be a better place." Dean couldn't argue with that; a day without Rufus certainly would make the world seem brighter. He bent his head obediently and continued to read the text Rufus had set in front of him. Nothing on the pages broke through the insistent voice he heard in his head, chanting _Mom-Mom-Mom_ , and he cursed himself for being so fucking useless.

To give the guy credit, he was reading too, flipping through pages quicker than Dean could fathom, sighing disgustedly as he failed to find what he needed in any of the books. When he'd shoved away a stack as tall as Sammy, Rufus pulled Dean's book away too and fixed him with a look. "Start talking."

He had to get this right, because this guy was his last hope. "There's not much to tell. Not yet. Bobby Singer, he found out something that made him sure that the thing that killed my mother was a demon. That's about all I know right now."

"No, you tell me _how_ she died, when, everything you know but never wanted to remember," Rufus said, pouring himself another belt of whiskey. Dean's eyes stayed locked on the glass until Rufus pushed it over to him. "Drink up, and give me the details." 

It was exhausting, and probably what going to a shrink - for real, not just as a way to get into his files and figure out which one of his former patients was haunting the office - was like. Dean drank and dredged up every memory he had, pulled them out into the light, examined them, and filtered them down for Rufus, who never let up. It should have been Dad doing this, giving real answers, not guessing and trying to piece things together; it wasn't like he'd been a particularly smart kid, and there were gaps in what he knew, gaps that the look in Dad's eyes had never let him try to fill.

He wondered, dimly, ungratefully, when he'd be allowed to stop reliving the worst days of his life, when Rufus held up a strong, shaking hand. "Dean," he said, sounding kinder than Dean had thought possible, "the demon you're after, the demon that's after you, is Azazel."

Dean's mouth opened and closed without any input from his brain, and before he could figure out what he needed to ask or say, Rufus stood, grabbed the last bottle of whiskey, and strode off to another room. Dean watched him go, vaguely wondering if he was now free to vomit or pass the news along to Dad or turn to the books again and look for that name.  
The sound of the door slamming clicked something off in Dean's mind, and instead he laid his head down on his arms and sank into sleep.

*

There was a soft swishing in his ears, the sound somehow vaguely comforting, and Dean opened his eyes and turned his head to find its source.

He barely remembered leaving Rufus's house or how he'd gotten past the barricades surrounding it, could only just recall getting into the car and turning her nose in what seemed like the least wrong direction. It was like the world had been turned off, the volume down low, everything slow and sluggish, the car the only thing capable of motion. Somehow, after all of that, he'd ended up in a church, and there was a girl in a long dress and soft-soled shoes standing next to him, one hand outstretched like she thought he needed comfort.

"Yeah?" he croaked, looking up to meet her eyes.

"Would you like me to sit here with you?" she asked, and he glanced over and saw that he'd left enough room between himself and the curled end of the pew for another person. _Mom_ , his traitorous mind supplied, _Mom with a hand cupped protectively around his head and a defiant look in her eyes_ , and he told himself to fuck right off.

At his shrug, she sat down, arranging her skirt so it wouldn't bunch under her, even though she was thin enough that the wooden pew would be biting into her bones in no time flat. She kept her heels on the floor and her eyes cast down, and he fidgeted next to her, eyes restlessly scanning the faded paint on the ceiling, the wires running along the walls, and the crucifixes everywhere. He couldn't sit still; his leg bounced up and down of its own volition, and her hand, still clasping her rosary, settled gently on his knee.

He looked from her hand to her face and saw nothing but concern. He let the warmth of her hand, of her body from shoulder to hip, bleed slowly into him and calm him down. They sat there, while the stained glass windows turned dark as daylight fled, and she braved a sidelong glance at him and said, "I'm a good person to talk to, you know. I never go anywhere."

He thought about that, all the places he'd been to learn what he knew now, what was weighing so heavily on him, as if he'd never wanted the knowledge in the first place. "What's your name?" he asked and she shifted to face him, the long rope of her braid brushing over his shoulder.

She was nothing like Mom, no resemblance except for being so young, so direct. "Nancy," she said.

He let himself linger a moment longer against her. "Thank you, Nancy," he said, then peeled   
himself away.

*

He sat in the car with the last of the sunlight doing its best to blind him, and fumbled his phone into his hand. Dad didn't pick up until the seventh ring, and Dean felt another shiver that something was wrong when he heard the tail end of Dad's laugh instead of hello.

It took a moment for his throat to cooperate. "What's going on?" He could hear a feminine voice and then Sam's, and he knew that Dad still had half his attention on whatever was happening there.

"Nothing," Dad said. "She and Sam are making sundaes."

"So she and Sammy are still hangin' out, everything's fine?" he asked. 

"What exactly are you asking, Dean?" Dad said, sounding pissed, and Dean hesitated.

He'd been worried, from what Sam had said, that Jessica seemed to have dropped Sammy like a hot potato once she'd gotten a load of Dad; whatever she was, she knew the importance of taking out the leader of the pack first. Not a succubus, but that was as far as he'd gotten.

If he said something, he'd be ratting out Sam. "Just heard the two of you were spending a lot of time together," he said.

"I needed Sam to do some research, and he can't exactly bring her along," Dad snapped. "What have you got for me?"

"Sorry, sir. I've got a name." There was still something skittering along the back of his mind, but he couldn't pin it down.

Dad's eagerness rang through sharp and clear, and as soon as Dean let the word "Azazel" tumble out, he figured out what he'd been trying to push down as impossible: Dad was going to go after this thing, and he wasn't planning on coming back.

"Dad, wait for me before you head out?" he asked but there was only silence on the other end of the line. _Damn it._ That was why he was going all Mike Brady for Jessica, trying to make sure she'd stick around for Sam after he was gone. _Dad_ was what his gut had been screaming at him.

He slammed on the accelerator and headed home.

  
"John," she said, closing the gap between them, and the way she shaped that one little syllable was just how she did it every night in every dream, pleading and loving and devilish at once, and he found he couldn't wait, so he hauled her in, erased the last few inches between them, and tilted her chin up for his kiss.

He didn't have so far to tilt this time; she was taller now, the top of her head just above his eye-line, but her hair still smelled sweet as strawberries. "John," she said again, and there was a little more mischief in her tone that time, matched by the teasing quirk of her lips as she pushed him down onto the bed. God, it had been too long since he'd had her warm weight on him, rubbing up against him just right, all the things he'd forgotten wrung out of him now with her silky thighs and dexterous hands.

She bit at his earlobe, a sharp nip that made him smack his palm against her ass. "You always were a handful," he rumbled out, meeting her lust-filled eyes.

"I think I'm a little more than a handful now," she teased, bringing his hand up to her breast, which spilled over his palm; she was right - she'd grown in all the right ways. He squeezed, just enough to know from her answering moan that she still didn't like it gentle, and traced the roundness of her perky little ass with the other hand. He could feel how wet she was against his thigh; he picked her up by the hips, positioned her, and let her slam her weight down on him. All his carefully built-up endurance, from years of deprivation, vanished like it had never been and he only stopped himself from howling her name by burying his face between her breasts.

"Really?" she asked, tumbling his rough hair. "You're done now?"

He was going to wipe the smirk off her face and dry up every tear he could see welling in her eyes. "Not even close, cupcake," he said, lifting her off his dick and getting his mouth reacquainted with the sweet taste of her pulsing beneath him.

*

She snuck back to the room that had been designated as hers, and ten minutes later he called out a "Good night, Sammy," that sounded too hearty to be anything other than a lie.

He settled down, trying to forget that all he'd lost was just one thin wall away, when he heard a stealthy shuffling coming down the hall. _Dean_ , he thought automatically, before memory caught up and reminded him that the boy wasn't around to sneak out and go tomcatting. No, that was _Sam_ , tapping lightly at Jess's door and asking to be let in. He could hear Mary's panic in her frantic whispers. "Go away! Your dad is right next door!"

He could almost see the disappointed slump of the kid's shoulders, could pretty much predict the way he would try to woo her all over again in the morning, with pancakes or flowers or the promise of a day spent together in the sunshine, away from school and deadlines and parents. Sam loved the girl he'd brought home to meet them.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes. God, what was he doing?

*

"What're we even doing, Mary?" he asked after Sam was safely out of the house on a wild goose chase that would take him all day at the library. She was riding him, steady and slow, her hair tossed back and tickling his thighs, her heavy breasts in her own eager hands.

She bent down to lick at his mouth. "I missed you so much," she said, and the words felt like they were true but would never be enough, and he let his hands linger on the soft skin of her hips. She covered his left hand with her right and stroked the wedding band that she'd had engraved with _Love Always_.

"He loves you," was all he could say, helpless against her determination, needing her reassurance.

"He loves _her_ , and she's not here," Mary said. "I don't know where they pulled me from or how I got jammed in here." She rocked back, sharp and sudden, pulling the breath out of him. "All I know is that I wanted this, want this, for however long we've got it."

She'd always been single-minded and direct, and John needed orders to follow, wanted answers from somewhere. He raised his hands to touch her skin, flushed all over, and closed his eyes.

*

She hummed as she cooked dinner, and Sam kept shooting him glances; John couldn't tell if he was meant to apologize for letting their supposed guest take over kitchen duty or if Sam was trying to get him to leave the two of them alone together. Whatever the case, John wasn't budging.

"What's that you're singing?" Sam finally asked.

"Just something that's been running through my head all day," she answered easily, like the words hadn't cost her a single pang, and John marveled again at the strength of his wife. He knew that the melody was from the mobile they'd hung over Sammy's crib; they'd had a different one, with angels and a bright, major-key tune, for the baby they'd expected to be Deanna instead of Dean. "Wash up," she said; "dinner's almost ready."

She dished out the food while Sam got sodas and a beer out of the fridge. "No," she said, "that plate's for Sam; I put extra peppers on it because they're his favorite." John looked up, wondering how she had the nerve to bluff now, but she had always been a cool customer, and Sam smiled his thanks and dug in. John ate slowly, wanting the time with her safe and happy under his roof to last as long as he could stretch it out. 

Sam didn't say much throughout dinner, and John got spooked enough by the uncharacteristic silence to shoot Mary a helpless look, but she seemed unperturbed, so he settled down and savored his meal and sipped his beer. When Sam nodded off over the book he held on his lap after dinner, though, John had figured it out. "What'd you give him?" he asked.

"You know very well he hasn't been sleeping," she said, hands on her hips in the old familiar way. "Like I was going to let my baby drag himself through another day with those bags under his eyes."

"How long will he be out?" John asked; she was the same old spitfire, and there was no point in protesting what was already done.

"He'll wake up tomorrow morning feeling great," she said.

"So we've got plenty of time. Mary," he said, advancing on her, "I need you to tell me everything you can remember about the thing that killed you."

  
"What does it matter? I'm here now," Mary said, willing John to just drop it. Not that it worked any better now than it had twenty years ago.

"Baby, I need to know," he protested.

"You don't," she said, trying to get by him, but he wasn't budging and he somehow managed to take up all of the space in the hallway. "God, I forgot what a stubborn jackass you could be."

He refused to rise to the bait, damn him, which meant somewhere along the way he'd learned patience, and that was going to make it so much harder to keep him in the dark. Then she remembered the holy water and realized there was a whole host of things he'd picked up since she'd been gone, and she was the one on unfamiliar ground. "John," she tried again, "can't you just trust me? I swear I'm only trying to protect you."

"Not good enough," he said. "Not for me, and not for the boys."

He'd just made a tactical error, bringing up her boys. "I'll tell you. But only tomorrow." She held up a hand to forestall his protest. "Tonight, you're going to tell me everything about my kids, everything I missed."

*

"So, Dean," John started out, wrapping his arm around her and making sure her head was pillowed comfortably on his chest. There was grey hair on his chest and in his beard now, and suddenly that was all she could see, all the lost years between them, and she shoved him away and scrambled out of the bed.

"Nothing, nothing. It's fine," she said before he could say anything. She fetched a chair from beside the kitchen table and sat in it, forcing herself to keep still and project outward calm. "I just - I'm ready now."

He gave her a long look from underneath lowering eyebrows but he started up again as instructed. "Dean," he said, then paused, considering, and she waited while a smile grew on his face. "Dean could charm the stripe off a skunk," John started, and she laughed even as her eyes welled up.

She didn't realize she was rocking in her chair, tears streaming down her face, until the low rumble of John's voice stopped washing over her, and he was there, holding her head in his hands and murmuring, "Mary-girl, Mary, Mary, I'm sorry." She locked her hands on his biceps and didn't let go or look away.

*

Her boys had been superheroes and warriors, roles she would have sacrificed herself for them never to know, but her death had precipitated all of it. It wasn't just what she had missed; it was what she had never known to warn them about, the life that her parents had raised her in being passed down to her own children like sins in the Bible, staining generation after generation.

Her fury at John for making that choice burned brightly, then snuffed itself out. What else could he have done? What else would she have done, had he been the one to die screaming in twists of fire? There were no other options she could have lived with.

But there was no need for that now, whether she stayed or whether somebody up there realized their mistake and snapped this body free of her and put sweet Jessica back in her proper place. Revenge was always a losing proposition. 

She scrubbed at her face, heating the tracks of her tears, and turned to look back at him as she left his room. He still had one hand outstretched toward her. "Bring Dean home," she asked, not waiting for his response.

Only one thing he'd said had brought her any comfort. "They're good boys, Mary. And they look out for each other." Her boys had been brothers, for real and not just in name, and she took that thought with her to the little twin bed Sam had given up for her and turned out the light.

*

There was a mug of tea on the bedside table when she woke up; Sam's gift, she assumed, because John had known not to get between her and her morning coffee for anything less urgent than a life-or-death situation. She sat up and cradled it in her hands, blew on it, and took a tentative sip. It tasted like he'd dumped half a sugar bowl into the mug, and it hurt her teeth, but she drank it down, the proof that even the baby who'd never known her had grown into a good man like his father.

The caffeine and sugar woke up her brain, and she realized that the tea was also a sign that Sammy was up and alert, and she'd have to spend the day evading him and pretending she didn't see the confused hurt in his eyes, when what she really needed to be doing was preparing herself to spill the truth about her death to John. She needed time apart, time to think. She locked herself in the bathroom and took a shower that lasted as long as the hot water did, making her judgments as she shampooed her hair. There was no way around it; she was going to have to tell John everything.

She hadn't been expecting to come back, and for all she knew, this was just some colossal mix-up and soon enough she'd be sent on her way. In a dark corner of her mind, she hoped that it would happen before she had to narrate the circumstances of her life and death to her husband.

"Sam asked me to tell you he's borrowing your car for the day," John said when she emerged from the bathroom; his eyes seemed to be caught on the towel turban she was wearing. "Said he needed to run some errands and he'd be back with dinner."

"I'm going to get dressed," she said. "We might as well get this over with." While she was pulling on Jessica's clothes, she tried to think how best to start the story.

When she went out to face him, sitting on the dingy couch that Sam had been using as a bed, she had half-moon indentations in both her palms from the bite of her own fingernails. "My parents were hunters, too. Good enough that the Campbell name meant something to people."

And there it was, the situation of the earlier confessions reversed, because it looked like John was fighting the urge to deny everything coming out of her mouth, to shake her and rage at her for keeping her lips so tightly locked over these secrets. "Timing really is everything," she said, startling a laugh out of both of them, and then she traced out the lines that led up to what had happened on that day that he'd taken the boys for haircuts and burgers and she had burned, alone, in their kitchen, along with the cookies she'd been making for Dean.

"I don't know its name or what it was after," she said. "It doesn't matter now, anyway."

His mouth thinned down to a tight white line. "Yes, it does. Killing that thing's all that's kept us going."

" _No_." He was the only one living and breathing vengeance. What had kept her boys going was each other. "It's a fight to the death, John," she said, watching him use her words to gird himself up, hating herself for flooding with desire at the sight of him still centering his life around her, twenty years gone. "Please don't do this. Don't let them keep hunting." 

She wasn't budging him; his body language gave him away. "I'll tell them myself, then. I can't watch you live the life I hated, knowing where it's going to get you." 

Was this why she had been brought back, to choose between her children and her husband?

"Mary," he said, and shook his head, arguing against the choice she'd made.

  
Sam got into Jess's car and drove aimlessly for what felt like hours. He didn't understand what had happened with her; he couldn't think of a single thing he'd done to make her turn away from his kisses and avoid his hands, even when they pretty much had the house to themselves. He'd thought she loved him. The car was beginning to feel airless, and he knew he had to stop, get out of the car, and get himself together so that he could think, really think, and figure it out.

He hit the brakes when he recognized the gas station they'd found on the way in, and he remembered kissing the cherry Slurpee off her lips, the way she'd chased his mouth when he'd tried to pull back, how sweet it had been to taste her while the sun shone down on them like it was meant for just the two of them on that perfect day.

He pulled in and filled the tank up, then drove around to the back and washed her car from top to bottom, just the way Dean had taught him. With each wax-on, wax-off movement, he replayed everything that had happened since they'd walked into Dad's house. As the blue of the car emerged under his ministrations, sparkling in the sunshine, Sam found his own thoughts clearing up. In his own nervousness about bringing her home, he hadn't quite been able to miss the way she'd shook, her voice and her hands, as she stepped into the lions' den.

There had been no guarantee that Dean or Dad would like her, or that Sam would choose her if it came down to it. And suddenly it all made sense, to see what she'd done as attempts to win over Dad, the one whose opinion mattered most; surely even at her most apprehensive she could see that as long as Sam was happy, Dean was happy. 

Dad had said that Sam had to sleep on the couch, so Jess wouldn't touch him. Dad had dark circles under his eyes, so Jess made him sit outside in silence, just looking out at the world instead of trying to save it. Dad had been on his own for too long; Jess would cook him the meals he liked best.

Even that was astonishing. He wondered how long she'd been practicing, imagined that she might even have called her mom and asked for all the secret recipes guaranteed to make a man's mouth water. He laughed as he thought about her secret diligence, evidenced by the way she twirled the kitchen knife as expertly as she must have handled her little pageant baton, and he reminded himself to find out if her parents were hanging onto any videotapes of her from those days, his Jess, his beauty queen.

She loved him.

He put the top down and drove off, letting the sunlight warm up every inch of his skin.

*

The park was drenched in sunshine, and the shouts of happy children weren't too loud as long as he stayed far away from the swings. He didn't feel like sitting, so he wandered, feeling the grass soft under his feet. This would be a perfect place to take Jess for a picnic, maybe even for the two of them to make a day of it with Dean, whenever he got back from Dad's top-secret errand, and even Dad himself, who seemed to have invented a new smile just for Jess. He'd have his whole family with him, and everything would fall into place, because that was clearly how it was meant to be.

*

"Carat, clarity, color, and cut," the man said, looking at him like he was trying to figure out if Sam was really serious about this endeavor, or if it was all a familiar prank. Sam guessed he didn't look especially presentable in his holey jeans and white t-shirt, even if it did have _Stanford_ blazoned in red across the chest; he figured either Dad or Jess would make sure he knuckled under and got a haircut before any pictures for posterity were taken. "Those are the four bases for grading diamonds. Do you need me to go into further detail?"

Sam shrugged, content to wander around the store and look for whatever caught his eye. He saw a flash of a rainbow out of the corner of his eye and turned and headed for that display. The rings there were beautiful, glittering like they were lit up from the inside, and he bent closer. "The rings in that case start at ten thousand dollars," the man said, and Sam straightened up and walked away. He couldn't start any kind of life with Jess under the weight of that kind of debt.

"But over here," the man said, clearly taking pity on him, "you can design your own ring, starting with the center diamond itself." Sam nearly refused, about to say that he certainly couldn't buy a ring today, and there was no way of knowing where Dad and Dean would be shacked up by the time he could, but stopped himself. It would be nice to buy her a ring in Kansas, where Dad and Mom had started their lives together, where he'd been born. There was a nice symmetry to it. He smiled at the guy and went to take a look.

  
Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Sam, wake up and smell the infidelity, man! Your girlfriend is like Phaedra in reverse! Ooh, a "reverse Phaedra" - that reminds me of this move I invented, way back when, with a little shepherd-girl in ancient Greece. Those were good times.

Actually, this is pretty good, too. After all, nothing these days says sex and debauchery and rampant idiocy like a telenovela, and this one's live and unscripted. 

All those Winchesters, even the ones who aren't quite real, are melodramatic. And this is pretty juicy. Though there's no law against making things juicier still. 

I think now might be a good time to shake things up just a little bit more. What? I make my own fun.

  
"Mary," Sam's dad said, looking right at her, and Jess shook her suddenly pounding head, trying to clear it.

"Your wife's name was Mary?" Jess tried to follow along, but that must have been the wrong thing to say, because his face shut down like a shot. "Sorry," she said, pulling her still-damp hair free from its loose ponytail, "my head's a little sore. I think I need some aspirin."

Without a word, he got up to get it, and she was left on their living-room couch, plucking nervously at the loose threads in the blanket Sam had been sleeping under, and wondering what she'd done to piss his dad off. At some point, she was going to break him down and he was going to admit that she was the right girl to make Sam happy, and it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

She'd just gotten up to go after him when the front door opened and Sam walked in with a big bag from Whataburger, and her stomach growled. She couldn't remember eating anything all day. Hell, she couldn't remember _what_ she' d been up to for the past couple days; she needed that aspirin _now_. Or maybe just some endorphins. 

She threw her arms around Sam's neck and pulled him down, then kissed him for all she was worth. He was warm from the sunshine, strong as ever, and she felt more than a little thrill when he picked her up halfway through like she weighed nothing at all, even though the takeout bag was still looped around one of his wrists. She got her fingers in his hair and pulled just the slightest bit, not enough to drag that magic mouth away from hers.

Behind her, she heard something but couldn't be bothered to stop kissing Sam long enough to glance that way. "Here's your aspirin," Sam's dad said, dry as dust, and Sam jerked in surprise; she wasn't far enough off the ground to fall, but she landed on her feet harder than she meant to.

"Thanks," she said, totally unable to read the expression on his face. She scooped the two pills up from his palm and took the glass of water he held out for her. When his cell phone rang and he checked the caller ID, his face got a lot easier to interpret. "Dean?" she guessed, and he smiled at her, a nicer one than she'd seen before, one that made it clear who Sam had inherited his brilliant smile from, and headed out the door to take the call and give them some privacy.

She wasn't about to let the opportunity slip. "Come make me feel better, Sam," she invited, setting down the pills and the water. She could see puzzlement flash in his eyes, so she grabbed his hand and led him down the hall to her room. It was clear that Sam was trying to work something out in his head, so she contented herself with stripping out of her own clothes and leaving him alone; only when a smile began to creep across his face did she pull him close by his belt loops and kiss him again. His chest was like a wall of muscle through his thin t-shirt, and it felt ridiculously good against her bare breasts. 

"Come on," she whispered, and he picked her up again and laid her down on the little twin bed. His body covered hers completely, and his eyes were squeezed shut as he set a rhythm they could both work with. She kissed the moles on his jaw, by his nose, and tipped her chin up and let out a moan that made him smirk. She licked the dimple that formed in his cheek and smiled at his growl. 

His mouth was on her breast and his fingers were between their joined bodies when she came, and he followed soon after. Sticky and sated and sore, she had no intention of moving, not even for food. Sam seemed to be in the same frame of mind, because he shifted her to lie on top of him and pushed back the hair that fell forward when she leaned down to watch his contented face. "You're my future, Jess," he said. "I love you."

"I don't know what I'd do without you," she said. "I love you, too."

*

The burgers were fine, even lukewarm, but the shakes couldn't be salvaged, so they cracked open three cherry Cokes and settled down to gorge themselves.

"When's Dean coming home?" Sam asked, his mouth full, and between that and his unmistakable bedhead, Jess had a clear picture of what their sons might look like.

"He's been driving for a couple of days already," his dad said. "Could be any time now." He took a long swallow of his soda, and set the can down carefully, like it was important to put it back exactly on the ring of condensation it had left on the table already. "It sounds like he might have a new lead on an old case for us."

"Oh! Can you tell us about it?" she asked, curious about the scope of their business.

His eyes went from her to Sam and then back again. "No, I can't. Confidentiality issues. Fact, I think it might be best for Dean to sit this one out too; I want to finish this one on my own."

That didn't seem fair to her, that Dean wouldn't get to see the case to its conclusion if he'd been off researching it for the past week, but Sam didn't protest, so she sat tight and reached for another onion ring.

They ate until they were ready to pop, and when she stood up to clear the plates, Sam's dad stopped her with a firm hand on her wrist. "I'm glad Sammy has you," he said, and she laughed to see Sam's jaw drop. His dad smiled too at the sight. "You're good for him," he said.

He stood, and pushed her shoulder, gently. "Sit. I'll take care of this."

She swooped down to peck Sam on the lips and then sat on his lap. "I've got the best seat in the house," she murmured into his neck, and his dad laid a gentle hand on each of their heads before turning away to clear the table.

*

"Dean!" Sam said as his brother unfolded himself out of the driver's seat of the black Chevy.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said, and _man_ , he looked exhausted. Sam evidently saw it too, because he reached out and pulled him into a long hug like Dean wouldn't be able to stay standing without his support. "You sticking around?" he asked quietly, the words muffled against Sam's shoulder.

"We've gotta get to Jess's parents' place in the next couple of days," Sam said, sounding apologetic. "Her dad's birthday is on Friday."

Dean disentangled himself from his brother, saying, "Hey, Jess," like he'd just remembered her existence, even though she and Sam had been standing on the porch together, waiting for his return. Poor guy - he looked really out of it. She went to the kitchen and poured him a glass of iced tea from the pitcher that was in the fridge, the one that looked just like the pitcher that her mom used to keep for orange juice.

The way Dean smiled tiredly at her when she handed him the glass made her, for some dumb reason, want to cry. He was going to make as good a brother-in-law as he had a big brother. Dean drained the glass and then went inside in search of his father. "We should start packing up," she reminded Sam, and they ambled toward the house, following the tired line of Dean's shoulders, hand in hand and bumping hips as they went.

  
Yeah, so I had my buddy - he goes by Omar these days, but you'd probably still recognize him - put everything back to the way it was supposed to be. Far be it from me to deny John Winchester his solitary suicide quest to find Old Yellow Eyes.

I wonder if he'd listen to a hint or two if I dropped them. What? The man's an idiot, but there really _was_ something about that girl of his; if anyone deserved to be avenged, she did. She was one of my all-time favorites. Hot blondes are always a good time.


End file.
